ASSEMBLE YOUR MATERIALS:

• Selecting the processor, motherboard, and memory
• Selecting a case
• Selecting a hard disk
• Extra drives, aka "should I bother with a floppy?"
• Video cards
• Audio cards
• Networking
• Monitors, printers, and all that extra stuff

PUT IT ALL TOGETHER:

• Tools and precautions
• Inspection and preparation
• Pre-assemble the motherboard
• Install the motherboard and expansion cards
• Install the drives and power supply
• The MAGIC SMOKE test...

Selecting the Other Drives

The question is not whether you need other drives. You do. The question is what kind, and how many. You have a number to choose from, including optical drives (CD or DVD), magnetic-media drives (floppy, high-density floppy), tape drives, and on and on and on. The variety is impressive but not particularly daunting, and the good news is that if you've made it this far then you're really in the home stretch now.

The types of drives you might be interested in include:

• Optical drives (CD, DVD)
• Magnetic-media drives (floppy et. al.)
• Memory card readers
• Bulk storage drives (tape, DAT, etc.)

Optical Drives

Up until recently, the only types of optical drives available were CD and DVD. There were a couple of variations on each, but for the most part, the decision involved very few variables. To make audio CDs for a car or other stereo, you need a CD burner. To make DVD movies, you need a DVD burner, although CDs can handle small movies in VCD format. If you're storing data for archival purposes, or (legally) copying software, it depends on how much: a little, CD; a lot, DVD. Simple, easy, no problem.

Now, in fact right now, the decision is much more difficult due to the introduction of both the Blu-Ray Disc™ and HD-DVD ("High-Definition Digital Versatile Disc," formerly AOD, "Advanced Optical Disc"). It wouldn't be much of a problem except that they're currently in the middle of the next VHS/Beta format war. Blu-Ray™ was developed by Sony; HD-DVD was developed jointly by Toshiba and NEC. Both are presumptive replacements for the DVD format. Both hold much, much more data than a standard DVD. Both offer High-Definition (HD) video. As if that all weren't enough, there are a few hybrid formats like 3xDVD, BD-9, and Total Hi Def, but they aren't expected to stand up to the bigger boys. Which one will win? Ask me in 2010.

Here's a quick rundown to (hopefully) make it a little easier:

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So it would seem that the Blu-Ray Disc™ or "BD" is the clear winner due to the obviously exceptional storage capacity. HD-DVD is gaining a great deal of industry support, however, so as in the first format war between VHS and Betamax, it could well end up being the porn industry that helps decide the victor.

It's worth noting that in the above list, only the standard DVD is limited to two layers. Current HD-DVD and BD discs use no more than two layers, but the specification allows for as many as will fit, and a number of multi-layer versions have been developed experimentally.

The important question, though, is the drive. When it was just CDs, you'd buy a CD drive. Then DVDs came out and you could buy a DVD drive that would also handle your CDs. Now that the Hi-Def formats are out, you can buy a BD drive, a HD-DVD drive, or even a Universal HD drive that will handle both formats, and all HD drives will also still run your CDs and DVDs. My current recommendation is to get a good DVD ReWriter and wait for (1) the HD drive prices to come down, and (2) maybe one format or the other to disappear.

A quick word on drive functions: A -ROM drive (CD-ROM, DVD-ROM) will only read discs, it won't burn them. A Recorder will record standard optical media, but not rewritable media. a ReWriter will read and burn standard and rewritable media, and there's no difference in price if you shop around a little. You might have cause to wonder about the difference between DVD-R and DVD+R. There isn't one. Not from a practical standpoint. They were the outcome of the first optical-media format war; two formats developed independently that perform comparably. There was a bit of a horse race at first, with the -R format doing better in some metrics than the +R format, and vice-versa, but it all fell by the wayside, effectively, as soon as the first multi-format DVD drive came out. A good DVD ReWriter will handle CD, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW formats and you'll never notice the difference until you try to record a full DVD video onto an audio CD.

If you like to copy CDs or DVDs (legally, of course), you might want to buy two optical drives. With DVDs in particular, I don't recommend this. It costs, well, twice as much (although you'll save a little on shipping if you order online), and you'll probably only rarely use the second drive. If you copy a disc, there's plenty of software that will do it perfectly well without a second drive; in fact, recording directly drive-to-drive is now less reliable. Plus, you only have so many IDE channels on your motherboard, so be careful. If you already decided on an EIDE drive and a DVD ReWriter, you'll have to resort to the Slave channels if you want to add more. Not that that's a problem, but a purist will tell you to limit your IDE drives to two (especially with the rise of SATA), and use the Master channels only.

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Magnetic-Media Drives

There are two basic types of magnetic-media drives: Floppy Drives, and Other. A floppy disk drive reads and writes to standard 3½" floppy disks. Floppy disks suck. No one uses floppy disks anymore except industrial producers of cheap, low-grade software, and companies that can't hack modern software security (sometimes a company will sell you a software CD with a "key" floppy that you have to have for installation). So get a floppy disk drive, just in case—if you run Windows 98 or ME, you might want the boot floppy some time—but get a fancy one with built-in memory card readers.

Get an "Other" drive only if you specifically know that you're going to need one for a very specific purpose. This would be something like an Iomega Zip or Jazz drive, or oddballs like that. These used to be pretty neat, but once CDs came to prominence, a paltry little 250 MB magnetic Zip disk became just one more pain in the... neck. They're generally slow, insecure, unstable, and the storage media is much lower capacity than optical formats.

Memory Card Readers

These are pretty neat. A good reader will accept several different memory card formats such as CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MiniCard, etc. Having a USB flash drive will come in very handy, but won't do you much good when you want to pop the media card out of your camera and read off the photos. Granted, cameras like that typically come with USB cables, which is fine, but I personally prefer not to hassle with the cord; just pop out the card, slide it in the top of my oh-so-obsolete floppy drive, and go.

The style pictured above is one option, and is the only reasonable type of floppy disk drive to buy, by the way. There are also versions without the floppy disk drive that can read and write 62-plus different formats (and yes, there are at least that many), including versions that won't fit in your 3½" drive bay; they go in a full-sized 5¼" drive bay.

Almost any memory card reader will be USB. Make sure your motherboard has a spare USB header to plug it in to.

Bulk Storage Drives

Almost everyone who ever bought one of these was told to buy it by someone else. I recommend that approach. While the enormous storage capacity (hundreds of gigabytes) is attractive, the price is not, and neither is the hassle of storing the tapes, DATs, or what have you. That's not to mention the software that some bulk drives require as well.

That's really all you need to know about these. If someone tells you that you need one, make sure that (1) they pay for it, (2) they install it for you, or if not then (2a) they give you explicit, detailed directions for installation.

That was by far the easiest module yet. Which makes sense because it's one of the simpler (ableit more important) decisions to make. This next one, on the other hand...

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Next Step: Selecting a Video Card