Hard Drives (HDD)
Installing a new hard disc drive (HDD) is one of the easiest- and cheapest- ways to increase your computer’s capacity. Almost all desktop PCs and many laptop computers can have their hard drives replaced or added to with much larger models. The drives themselves are surprisingly affordable, with even a 2 TB (2000 GB) desktop model coming in at under £65 (ex. installation).
If you prefer to fit the hard drive yourself, we have a wide selection available off the shelf. However, our staff can also fit the drive for you, and- where necessary- format and install Windows on it (see ‘Installation Services’ below).
Choose from a wide range of hard drives- Internal and External, Laptop or Desktop sized.
Solid State Drives (SSD)
The latest upgrade choice is a solid state drive (SSD). Instead of a spinning disc, these contain flash memory chips and are generally much, much faster than traditional hard drives. If you replace your main boot drive (i.e. the one with Windows- or Linux- and most of your programs on it) with a solid state drive, you’ll be astonished at how much faster your system is.
Our range starts at 120 GB, which is more than enough for a decent Windows installation and quite a bit of other stuff. We also sell 240 GB, 480 GB and even 960 GB models. (No, your eyes don’t deceive you- that last one is almost a terabyte).
The price-per-gigabyte of SSDs has been falling at an astronishing rate in recent years*, to the extent that it almost doesn’t make sense not to have one!
A selection of our SSD drives. By the time you read this, it’s likely that even larger and cheaper models will be available– please ask us for what’s currently available!
When they first took off, SSDs were usually used for the OS and paired with a larger-capacity hard drive- e.g. 500GB upwards- for main data storage and other less-commonly-accessed material. You can still do this if you require very large amounts of storage (and reuse your existing hard drive(s)). However, for more users with more moderate needs- or those willing to pay a little extra for a high-performance PC- it’s now practical to ditch the hard drive altogether and keep everything on the SSD.
As with our range of hard drives (above), we sell a selection of SSD drives off the shelf for you to fit yourself, or if you prefer we can install it for you as well.
* We deliberately removed the price tags from the photograph for that reason- it’d have been almost instantly out-of-date otherwise!
Drive Installation Service
Hard drive or SSD- let us install it for you at a very reasonable price.
If you would rather we installed your new hard drive or SSD for you- no problem. Our staff can do that for you in a quick and efficient manner- we have been doing it since 2001, after all!
The installation cost will typically depend on whether you simply want the drive fitted inside your computer, or whether you want it set up so that you can boot Windows and your programs from it as well (in which case we will transfer or install Windows to the new drive). Our installation prices are generally very reasonable, however- you can telephone or email us in advance to discuss your needs. (Our details are at the foot of the page.)
As always, our staff are happy to advise on what setup and choice of SSD or hard drive is best for you!
