Why not just get a PCI SATA controller card ? SL3114 based cards are cheap, plentiful, support big drives and have Windows 9x drivers . I use one reliably with a 1TB drive on a Windows 98 SE machine (WARNING: Windows 98SE partitions should be less than 127GB and Windows needs patches for big hard drives . See http://www.mdgx.com/add.htm#BHD , BHDD 3.1 in particular).

There are also IDE to SATA adapters, so you could just get a SATA drive, though you would still have the BIOS drive size limit .

Another old HDD is the most period-correct option. I wouldn't be too concerned about failure - I hope you're not going to be storing anything irreplaceable on a retro PC like this. A Quantum Fireball would be significantly faster than a Bigfoot. I have no idea what that BIOS might take, 8GB might be the max, or 32GB, or the full 137GB. Here again, I'd stick to 6.4-8GB, you most likely have other things for mass storage.

IDE to CF would work and be a lot faster (low access times), also quieter - but not period-correct. Would also be pricey.
Functionally identical alternative would be an IDE Disk-On-Module, which is basically just CF stuck to an adapter. Also probably not cheap, but sometimes they get dumped.

SSDs... most "IDE SSDs" are just CF cards with built-in IDE adapter, so no huge advantage. The smallest 'real' SSDs are about 32GB, which could be too big. Also they are SATA, so would need a controller that would work with your OS and on this board. Plus you would need to partition and format the disk in a modern machine to get the correct sector alignment. IMHO not worth the trouble, and the speed would be wasted on a machine like this.

Wouldn't bother with a microdrive, that's adding all the disadvantages of moving drives to the disadvantages of needing adapters. Plus they are ancient already, so any advantage in terms of reliability will be offset by age.

TLDR: don't worry about reliability, worry about backups. Go for period HDD if you want period correct, CF or similar is best for speed and ease-of-use. Or do both, a rotating disk for OS, a CF for portable storage between this and modern PCs.

dionb wrote on 2020-05-01, 19:48:

Another old HDD is the most period-correct option. I wouldn't be too concerned about failure - I hope you're not going to be sto […]
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Another old HDD is the most period-correct option. I wouldn't be too concerned about failure - I hope you're not going to be storing anything irreplaceable on a retro PC like this. A Quantum Fireball would be significantly faster than a Bigfoot. I have no idea what that BIOS might take, 8GB might be the max, or 32GB, or the full 137GB. Here again, I'd stick to 6.4-8GB, you most likely have other things for mass storage.

IDE to CF would work and be a lot faster (low access times), also quieter - but not period-correct. Would also be pricey.
Functionally identical alternative would be an IDE Disk-On-Module, which is basically just CF stuck to an adapter. Also probably not cheap, but sometimes they get dumped.

SSDs... most "IDE SSDs" are just CF cards with built-in IDE adapter, so no huge advantage. The smallest 'real' SSDs are about 32GB, which could be too big. Also they are SATA, so would need a controller that would work with your OS and on this board. Plus you would need to partition and format the disk in a modern machine to get the correct sector alignment. IMHO not worth the trouble, and the speed would be wasted on a machine like this.

Wouldn't bother with a microdrive, that's adding all the disadvantages of moving drives to the disadvantages of needing adapters. Plus they are ancient already, so any advantage in terms of reliability will be offset by age.

TLDR: don't worry about reliability, worry about backups. Go for period HDD if you want period correct, CF or similar is best for speed and ease-of-use. Or do both, a rotating disk for OS, a CF for portable storage between this and modern PCs.

If you want period correctness, go for it . I personally like nice modern, quiet and reliable drives . I have not gone with a SATA SSD yet, but I feel it would be worth it for the seek times alone, even if your PC is bottlenecked on transfer rates . IMHO, partitioning is not difficult to learn and installing a reliable SATA controller is just future proofing (IDE drives are no longer manufactured and getting affordable working ones is not going to get easier).

That said, whatever you choose to do, a backup is always a good idea .

EDIT : For data transfer, Iwould recommend a wired network card or a CF to IDE (removable) or getting a USB 2.0 card and USB flash drives, depending on how much period correctness is important to you .

To me, period correctness makes no sense, because nearly every machine (PC compatible) got upgraded during its life so italways covered multiple periods anyway . As long as I can run old software on actual hardware, I am happy, especially if I can get it to run better than it did in its heyday . Mostly that means using both older and somewhat less old but still compatible parts . We all see things a bit differently in this hobby, and that's part of the fun, IMHO . Some like to hotrod, some like to restore , most fit somewhere in between .

Thanks for the advice, @darry and @dionb. For now, since it was the most cost-effective way to go, I bought an old Quantum Fireball Plus LM 30 GB for $12.99. I did some further digging and like my chances of the Presario's BIOS recognizing the 30GB. I may look into some of the other options down the road if I'm not happy with this route, but this seems like a good place to start, and I don't plan on putting anything irreplaceable on it, anyway. Will circle back if I have any further q's. Thanks!

sixersfan105 wrote on 2020-05-01, 23:11:

I bought an old Quantum Fireball Plus LM 30 GB for $12.99. I did some further digging and like my chances of the Presario's BIOS recognizing the 30GB. I may look into some of the other options down the road if I'm not happy with this route, but this seems like a good place to start, and I don't plan on putting anything irreplaceable on it, anyway.

Great ! Sounds like the best and cheapest way to get your old machine back up and running. Getting older good IDE drives will soon be very hard to do. There is something about the whine of an old drive, is like having the floppy seek turned on in BIOS, is very comforting to hear those old noises that computers made when running well.

Horun wrote on 2020-05-02, 03:04:

sixersfan105 wrote on 2020-05-01, 23:11:

I bought an old Quantum Fireball Plus LM 30 GB for $12.99. I did some further digging and like my chances of the Presario's BIOS recognizing the 30GB. I may look into some of the other options down the road if I'm not happy with this route, but this seems like a good place to start, and I don't plan on putting anything irreplaceable on it, anyway.

Great ! Sounds like the best and cheapest way to get your old machine back up and running. Getting older good IDE drives will soon be very hard to do. There is something about the whine of an old drive, is like having the floppy seek turned on in BIOS, is very comforting to hear those old noises that computers made when running well.

Gotek adapters should have an option to make this noise from an internal speaker or something, not only when booting but also when reading and writing(?) an image. That would be cool IMHO.

Horun wrote on 2020-05-02, 03:04:

sixersfan105 wrote on 2020-05-01, 23:11:

I bought an old Quantum Fireball Plus LM 30 GB for $12.99. I did some further digging and like my chances of the Presario's BIOS recognizing the 30GB. I may look into some of the other options down the road if I'm not happy with this route, but this seems like a good place to start, and I don't plan on putting anything irreplaceable on it, anyway.

Great ! Sounds like the best and cheapest way to get your old machine back up and running. Getting older good IDE drives will soon be very hard to do. There is something about the whine of an old drive, is like having the floppy seek turned on in BIOS, is very comforting to hear those old noises that computers made when running well.

PSU fan blowing softly, I like
Floppy noises, I like.
Hard drive seek noises/chirping, I like .
Hard drive worn out ball bearing noises, I despise . Thank goodness for fluid bearings ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_bearing ) which have been common for the last 15 or so years .

To each his own .

darry wrote on 2020-05-02, 03:20:

PSU fan blowing softly, I like Floppy noises, I like. Hard drive seek noises/chirping, I like . Hard drive worn out ball bearing […]
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PSU fan blowing softly, I like
Floppy noises, I like.
Hard drive seek noises/chirping, I like .
Hard drive worn out ball bearing noises, I despise . Thank goodness for fluid bearings ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_bearing ) which have been common for the last 15 or so years .

To each his own .

🤣 then you would hate a real XT or 286 with original MFM/RLL or SCSI drives. Ohh that drive sound is something to behold ! Like a little jet turbine winding up on the power on. Personally I hate people talking on their phones while in line at the grocery store or bank more than any sound coming naturally from an old computer.

Horun wrote on 2020-05-02, 03:41:

darry wrote on 2020-05-02, 03:20:

PSU fan blowing softly, I like Floppy noises, I like. Hard drive seek noises/chirping, I like . Hard drive worn out ball bearing […]
Show full quote

PSU fan blowing softly, I like
Floppy noises, I like.
Hard drive seek noises/chirping, I like .
Hard drive worn out ball bearing noises, I despise . Thank goodness for fluid bearings ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_bearing ) which have been common for the last 15 or so years .

To each his own .

🤣 then you would hate a real XT or 286 with original MFM/RLL or SCSI drives. Ohh that drive sound is something to behold ! Like a little jet turbine winding up on the power on. Personally I hate people talking on their phones while in line at the grocery store or bank more than any sound coming naturally from an old computer.

I almost certainly would . That being said, old MFM/RLL drives surely did not sound as bad when their bearings were new ; the examples we have today have 30 years or more of use on them. I am pretty much too young to remember that era, though . The closest I got were a friend's MFM hard drive in an XT clone (around 1990) and an old Quantum Hardcard (around 1996) and they were not that bad . Cases tended to be better built back then and probably afforded extra noise dampening compared to the usually ultra crappy and cheap cases of the mid nineties .

As for SCSI drives, I hate even the newer 10K and 15K RPM units, even when new . I remember a colleague at work showing off his new dual Pentium II 333Mhz rig with 10K RPM drives and thinking, no thanks .

The first PC we had at home, when I was a teen in 1992, had a Quantum ProDrive LPS 52AT (https://wiki.preterhuman.net/Quantum_ProDrive_LPS_52AT , they made a SCSI version too). At 3600 RPM, it was whisper quiet when spinning, so I feel no nostalgia for drive noises . Later, when I started buying my own hardware, I used 5400 and eventually 7200 RPM drives, but found most of them annoyingly noisy, especially when their bearings started to age . By the mid 2000s, with fluid bearings in drives, large fan CPU coolers and high efficiency quiet PSUs , I was really a happy camper .

Bit late but if you do need more storage down the track Phil did a video on this.
https://youtu.be/Edmg43t28jg

Personally I like the IDE to SATA converter and a traditional HDD for C:\ as do like those spiny noises during boot.
Usually have a second hard drive, usually solid state for games, data, etc that I want faster access times and wont miss the sound