| Plan it Out / the OS |
| Plan by Function |
| Tweeking Speed |
| Salvaging Parts |
| Discount PC Parts |
| Key Considerations |
|
Primary Components
|
| Case and Power |
| CPU (Processor) |
| Motherboards |
| Buying RAM |
| Hard Drives |
|
Secondary Components
|
| Video Output |
| CD /DVD /Floppy |
| Sound Cards |
| Getting Online |
|
Peripherals
|
| Keyboard / Mouse |
| Printer / Scanner |
| Monitors / Displays |
| Computer Speakers |
| Getting Started >>> |
| Choosing and Installing Software >>> |
| Optimizing and Overclocking your PC >>> |
While optical drives, floppy drives, USB thumb drives, and flash drives may not be strictly necessary for the home PC computer system you're building, they do have their uses. For instance if you wanted to transfer files to an older machine it may be necessary to have some sort of floppy drive. For a gaming computer you would want to have a CD drive and probably a DVD drive as well. A media center PC would be incomplete without a DVD drive, and eventually blue-ray or HD-DVD will become the norm.
Optical Drives (CD and DVD)
Optical drives have progressed a long way in the past few years, and you can now easily purchase DVD writers that are capable of burning 9GB of data to a disk for an insignificant amount of money. Even if you don't plan on watching or copying DVDs on your computer, it is still worth purchasing a burner for their superior backup capabilities.
When purchasing a DVD writer, you will want one that is capable of burning both the '+' and '-' standards, and they should also be Dual Layer compatible. This will ensure that you can burn to almost all recordable DVDs currently on the market (the other major format, DVD-RAM is almost unused, for the most part, so don't worry about it).
Floppy Drives
Though generally not needed, floppy drives are often installed anyway. Floppy drives have been made obsolete in recent years by devices such as USB "Thumb Drives" and CD writers. Floppy drives are sometimes required for BIOS updates and exchanging small files with older computers. Floppy drives block air movement with wide cables, and can make computers set to check the drive take longer to start (most have an option in their bios to disable this.) The drives and disks are also notoriously unreliable. One option to overcome the cable problem and to make it easier to install is to buy an external USB floppy drive. These are potentially a little bit faster and can be plugged into a different system (such as a laptop without a floppy drive.) However, not all systems support booting from a USB floppy drive -- most notably older motherboards. Most newer systems do now though. A USB floppy drive is considerably more expensive and since floppy drives are not needed much anymore, this is rarely a useful option. You can easily get a thumb drive holding more than 50 times as much as one floppy disk for the same price as a USB floppy drive.
