Dell Optiplex GX270

[cheebahawk]

Hi, I bought a refurbished Dell Optiplex GX270 (tower) with the intention of upgrading it. There is currently a 40Gb IDE hard drive installed. I'm currently trying to work out if I can install a secondary SATA hard-drive to give me additional space for music files etc. Or would the 2nd drive also have to be IDE? Or would I be better off just taking the orginial hard-drive out and replacing it (with IDE or SATA?)?

 

Also, although there are free slots for additional hard-drives, they don't have the green plastic brackets in them. Does anyone know where I can get them in the UK?

 

Any help/tips/advice would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

[Tony D]

If you want to add a SATA drive and the computer doesn't have a SATA interface, you can purchase a PCI to SATA adapter.

 

Here's a link to the User's Guide Documentation

 

Can't help you on the rails.

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, the IDE to SATA converter, which is what I think Kelly meant, there is one here-

Startech IDE To SATA Drive Motherboard - Adapter - Ebuyer

The fixing brackets for a new drive should come with the drive I would have thought.

 

However, to decide which way do you go, do you buy a SATA drive then the adapter, do you buy a IDE drive and save the cost of the adapter, or do you replace the small 40GB existing drive with say a 500GB drive.

 

Take the first option, you will need the adapter, can the price of a new SATA drive be that much cheaper and more than £14, than an IDE one? only you can decide from looking at what is available either locally or googleing on the net.

 

The last option, a replacement drive for the old one. There will be the messing about of transferring the operating system onto the new drive, and that depends on if you have a disk, and whether it is the right type of disk to do that.

 

Whichever way you decide to go, let us know and we may be able to give further help if needed.

Nev.

[Tony D]

I really did mean PCI to SATA adapter. If the computer doesn't have a SATA port to connect to an internal SATA drive, you can purchase a PCI card that will give you an internal SATA connector.

 

See here: Amazon.com: Sata II-150 Pci 2PORT Internal Controller: Electronics

 

Sata II-150 Pci 2PORT Internal Controller

[Tootech]

Or one of these in UK money

 

Extra Value Serial ATA 2 Port PCI Card - Ebuyer

[RandyL]

Looking at the Documentation I'm wondering if in fact there is room for an additional hard drive. Are you sure these aren't drive bays for say a CD or floppy drive.

 

Your model comes in three flavors.

 

Small Form-Factor Computer (One hard drive (IDE or Serial ATA)

Small Desktop Computer (One hard drive (IDE or Serial ATA)

Small Mini-Tower Computer (two hard drives (IDE or Serial ATA)

 

Which one do you have?

Do you have the Windows installation media?

 

I guess if you have the latter it's all down to the pricing with the components but I'll offer my opinion.

 

You have an old computer with an old hard drive. Drives eventually fail. If you have the Windows disks get a new large drive and install Windows to it. After that the 40GB drive will seem insignificant.

[cheebahawk]

Hi guys,

 

Its the small mini-tower version I have, which does have space for additional drives. It also has connections for both IDE and SATA. The concern I had was whether its ok to have both an IDE and a SATA drive connected to the computer at the same time.

 

I've got a windows xp restore disk that came with the machine.

[Tony D]

You should have no problem running both a SATA and IDE drive in the comptuer.

[Plastic Nev]

OK thanks, the documentation isn't specific enough to tell us the board has both IDE and SATA, so yes, you can run the two together, for simplicity and to save reinstalling the operating system to a larger drive on its own, leave the 40GB one in, and install whichever drive you want as slave or extra.