hard drive & memory options for home use...?

Question

I have 3 choices for memory:

512MB Dual Channel DDR2 533MHz (2x256) Memory [Included in Price]

1024MB Dual Channel DDR2 533MHz (2x512) Memory [add £58.75]

2048MB Dual Channel DDR2 533MHz (4x512) Memory [add £152.75]

is the one included with price likely to be ok for home use? or should I pay the extra for one up - is it much better or wouldn't I notice for my purposes?

I think this is more for people running big programs?


And for the hard drive:
currently mine is old & only 16GB so the 250GB option is likely to be more than enough for me - not worth upgrading?
Options:

500GB (7200rpm) NCQ SATA Hard Drive [add £188.00]

250GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst cache [Included in Price]

320GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 2MB DataBurstTM cache [add £70.50]

Thanks - ps ameteur here - use simple language, thanks!!

Answer 1

I have 256MB. of RAM & it's fine. My hard drives amount to 180GB. It's fine fo home use.

Answer 2

Find out how many sticks of RAM the 512MB is (it will most likely be 1 or 2) - if it's only one then I'd go for the 512MB, you can add more as and when you need it. If it's in two sticks then you may find that you'll have to replace the existing two sticks if you ever need to upgrade because there may not be enough free slots in the computer, and it's always better to have RAM sticks of the same size and make (manufacturer).

250GB is more than adequate for the hard drive, even if you want to do a bit of light home video work. If you got serious with doing home movies you would be better off buying a 2nd hard drive for that purpose anyway as video always works better from a 2nd hard drive. What's more the 250GB comes with 8MB cache which should give you the fastest hard drive performance out of those three.

Answer 3

If I had the money I would opt for the most memory I could get the $152.75 option, because with today's large programs the more memory you have the better and they are writing more and more programs everyday that gobble up memory. You would notice a big difference in speed if you started with the standard memory and then upgraded.The standard 250 GB Hard drive should be more than adequate for home use, if you get the additional memory, because the hard drive would then be used for storage only, and not being used as much for virtual memory because the additional memory would be adequate, and 250 GB is a lot of files for I have an 80 GB in my system and I have never had a problem, andI do a lot of music recording and Karoke Singing on my PC.

Answer 4

I've just upgraded to a gig of RAM and I can't believe the difference its made to the speed of my pc. I noticed that all my background security software, processess etc were using 200mb RAM while idle! Whether you need any more or a larger hd really depends on what you want to do and whether you can afford it.
With 4 slots you can have 1 gig now and upgrade later if you decide you need to, but go for the 1 gig option at least.
If you want to listen to music, or work with photos, go for the 320gig hd if you can afford it. Otherwise the 250 gig is plenty, but it really depends on how tidy you are!
If you can have the drive partitioned into 2, do that. Have your OS and programs on the first drive, using at least 80 gigs, then have the second drive as long term storage.
If you ever need to re-install XP, you can just reformat the program drive and your stored files won't be affected.

Answer 5

as far as the memory goes 512 is enough for all the basic needs
email, internet, running 2 to 3 programs at once (depending on the programs)
if youre a big multitasker, a gamer, or run some heavy programs i would take the 1gb
me personally i would go 1gb anyway the need for RAM isnt decreasing over time it goes up so even if you dont have an immediate need for at some point in time im sure you will
and the hard drive the 250 is plenty

Answer 6

If you're running Windows XP, 512 MB RAM is the least you need. Insofar as the the hard disc is concerned, Windows XP will, in itself consume around 6 GB over a period of time, along with Office XP. This could make it a bit dicey for you because it leaves you with very little space to store much else.

However, to get better performance, since with 512 MB RAM, you might keep having the system stall and Windows tell you that you are running low on "virtual memory", every now and then; and with the Updates that keep on coming in, your Hard disc space may also run very thin, I'd suggest that you go in for the least expensive upgrade there.

It's a bugger. But then, when you're going in for a penny, you might as well go in for the pound, innit?

Cheers

Answer 7

I assume you are buying from Dell. Their upgrades are such a rip. Just stick with your basic system. If you need to upgrade you can buy a RAM stick for less than Dell charge. In fact for the upgrade price you can get a gig ram stick from ebuyer giving you 1.5 Gigs of RAM. Ditto for the hard drive. About £60 for an extra 250 gigs.

Answer 8

i would go for a gig also
but if you want to play games go for 2 gig
hard drive plenty big enough but partion it c:drive 30 gb is plenty big enough for winxp and programs and d: for storage or saved files
i personally would partition into 3 < 5 drives

Answer 9

I would go with at least a gigabyte of ram. I will not even run XP with less than 512mb.

Answer 10

512mb of memory is plenty for a home computer, if you are not planing on gaming. 250GB is plenty trust me i know how you fell my computer only has a total of 14GB of hard drive space.