PC upgrade, ideas needed.

Stinicker

I have a Medion computer I got in Aldi about 14 months ago and it is a brilliant machine, I don't use it as my main pc but rather have it attached to my 50" Panasonic Plasma screen TV and use it as a HTPC, although in reality this is just a PC with a huge screen and I have no specialised software or anything on it; VLC Media player being all I need!

The computer is quite fast compared to my laptop and my 7 year old main trusty old Dell which I have made a few modifications to during the years. Right now I am perfectly happy with the PC and it does what I want it to do but I am thinking of upgrading it.

The PC has a 500GB hard drive, I have alot of stuff on it and it is nearly full so I want to add a second 2TB harddrive.

I want to add a Bluray Rewritable drive (BD-RE) so I could use for watching Blurays, archiving stuff to blank bluray disks etc.

My last idea was to add a USB3 PCI card to allow me to use the computer with a USB3 external drive I have. I don't think USB3 can be added on without changing out the Motherboard? If so this idea would be scrapped.

I would be happy to spend up to €200 - €250 for the Bluray rewriter and 2TB HD and am not sure if the USB3 plan is even possible.

Any ideas or recommendations for sites or manufacturers to choose from etc. would be great.

The system is 2.5Ghz quad core 4GB ram on Win7 64-bit. Intel core 2 quad Q8300 and I bought it for €400 for just the tower, keyboard etc with no Monitor and its quite fast with a windows experience index rating of 5.6

Messerschmitt

Hi.

In terms of the hard drive, Samsung and Western Digital are probably the best.

Consider what is important to you, speed, silence? I would say look at the Samsung Spinpoint EcoGreen and Western Digital Caviar Black. 2TB drives are pricey enough though.

Blu Ray drive, I have an LG. LG come highly recommended by most.

As for USB3, should be possible. You will need a free expansion slot, PCI or PCI-e most likely, the manufacturer of the USB3 expansion card will specify. I cannot recommend anything in this field though because I haven't researched it.

Scorpion venom

hey there www.Komplett.ie are good place to buy your parts Ive used them in the past and was good to deal with and now they do free shipping too,

heres another store too as the lads on this site recommend
http://www1.hardwareversand.de/home.jsp?lid=2

try get yourself a SSD as well for booting up your OS nice and quick

Serephucus

There's also Dabs.ie.

Komplett haven't been great in the last couple of years, and HWVS are a pain in the hole to get payment sorted with. (Bank transfer takes a couple of days.)

Messerschmitt

I've used Elara.ie without problems also.

Stinicker

Thanks for the tips guys! I have used Komplett for Ram and Harddrives before and everything I got is going strong 3 years later so may consider them again.

Good to hear about the USB 3.0 capability, The PC currently has a module in the front with 2 x USB 2.0 1 x eSata, three Memory card slots for XD, SD, MD etc and a Microphone and Earphones.

I'm thinking of swapping it out for the likes of this which would give me all the capabilities of before but with USB 3.0 ports instead for fast USB data transfer. Anybody know I can buy these?

deconduo

2TB Hard Drive: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004J35JZU?psc=1
Blu-Ray RW: http://www.elara.ie/productdetail.aspx?productcode=ECE1924862
USB 3.0: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Transcend-Express-Interface-Dual-Expansion/dp/B003MVJG8Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1303654850&sr=1-1

Just make sure your computer has a free molex/sata power cable for the Hard Drive and a fre PCI-E slot for the USB3 adapter.