April Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 4

Storage

Two Maxtor DiamondMax 10 (6B250S0) 7200RPM 250GB OEM

Current Cost: $298
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

NCQ (Native Command Queuing) is currently all the rage when it comes to SATA drives, and as we're fans as well, our drive selection also includes this high performance technology. NCQ uses intelligent algorithms to speed up hard drive access time and increase data throughput, and can upgrade the performance of a 7200 RPM drive quite nicely. Both the Intel 925XE Express and NVIDIA nForce4 chipsets include native support, making it natural that we jump at the opportunity to include a NCQ capable hard drive.

While it may seem odd that we are replacing a pair of 10,000 RPM WD Raptor drives with two 7200 RPM drives, NCQ support and the larger cache on our Maxtor DiamondMax 10 drives makes up for the performance gap between the two drives. Additionally, two 250GB Maxtor drives become a much more attractive alternative when compared to two significantly smaller 74GB Western Digital drives. From a performance standpoint we prefer to use RAID 0 stripping when configuring our two drives, but RAID 1 mirroring is a much better option for the more data conscious user.

The Maxtor DiamondMax 10 (6B250S0) 7200RPM 250GB is one of the fasted SATA-based drives we have ever used as it not only has NCQ support, but also includes a massive 16MB cache. Putting two of these blazingly fast drives in a RAID 0 array not only leaves you with half a terabyte of storage, but also wickedly fast load and data transfer times. For the acoustically conscious user it will bring you peace of mind to know that the DiamondMax 10 series of hard drives feature Quiet Drive Technology, and have fluid dynamic bearings making this one of the quietest high-end drives we have ever used. As a testament to quality Maxtor includes also includes a full 3-year warranty with this drive, and at a very reasonable $149 per drive, it was no problem including two of them this month.

CD-ROM/DVD-RW: Pioneer 16x DVD+RW/-RW DVR-109 OEM

Cost: $63
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

As all eyes are on the looming format war between the Blu-ray and HD-DVD camps, there has been very little movement in the way of DVD+/-R drives lately. However, that didn't stop us from snatching a Pioneer 16x DVD+RW/-RW DVR-109 drive, a model which slightly increases the Dual-Layer writing speed over the previous DVR-108. The DVR-109 is capable of writing at 6X DVD+/-R for Dual-Layer media, 16X for DVD+/-R, 8X for DVD+RW, 6X for DVD-RW, 40X for CD-R, and 24X for CD-RW. Pricing seemed to have hit rock bottom, as it can currently be found for about $63, making this an excellent value for such a high-end optical drive.

The Pioneer DVR-109 is also available with either a black or beige faceplate, which allows you to mix and match according to personal preference.

Floppy Disk Drive: Generic 1.44 Floppy Disk Drive

Cost: $8

For those of you who still continue to cling onto the age-old technology of 1.44MB floppy disks we still include one in our extreme machine. Any old floppy drive will do, but we recommend sticking to a known brand like Panasonic, Sony or similar.