New hard drive question

[Mr Smiley]

This is my first time every installing a new hard drive. I need a new hard drive so I can store my music/photos and also im gonna get a tv tuner and record shows so the drive dosen't need to be that fast. First question!!!! Which should I get. Nothing less than 160gb and 7200 RPM also needs to run cool and quiet. Second!!!! Whats the difference between Serial ata, Parallel ata and ide? How do I know if sata or pata can be installed on my motherboard? I have a samsung 120gb ide drive installed now.

 

[Hans5849]

Western Digital Hard Drives are good. Serial ATA (SATA) is the new tech that is uber fast, Parallel ATA PATA and IDE are pretty much the same i think.

 

[stevty2889]

The only advantage to SATA right now, is the smaller cable. It is the newer technology, but current hard drives don't even fully use ata100, let alone SATA's 150. What motherboard do you have? Even the newest motherboards still have PATA connectors, so if you aren't sure, stick with PATA. IDE just stand for Integrated Drive Electronics, so SATA an PATA are both IDE.