Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
same warning.
Hard Disk/Solid-State Drives
Your system also needs at least one hard disk or solid-state drive. One of the cardinal rules of
computer shopping is that you can never have too much storage. Buy as much as you can afford, and
you'll almost certainly end up filling it anyway.
Serial ATA has become the most popular drive interface, with many motherboards featuring six or
more SATA connectors. Some still have a Parallel ATA port as well.
Many motherboards now feature Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks (RAID)-
capable SATA interfaces. These enable you to install multiple drives in a number of array
configurations, including RAID 0 (striped), RAID 1 (mirrored), RAID 5 (striped with distributed
parity), and RAID 10 (striped mirrors). Using the RAID 1, RAID 5, or RAID 10 configuration is
particularly useful for increased protection against data loss. RAID 1 requires matched pairs of
drives, whereas RAID 5 requires three or more drives and RAID 10 requires four drives.
All motherboards have built-in USB ports, and many include IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ports as well.
External USB and FireWire drives are useful for backup purposes as well as for moving large
amounts of data from system to system. Many late-model motherboards also feature eSATA ports for
use with external drives, but most drive vendors that formerly produced eSATA drives now use USB
3.0 interfaces instead.
See the
Chapter 7
sections, “
PATA/SATA RAID
,
”
p.
434
and “
ATA Standards
,”
p.
380
.
Removable Storage
Hardly any of today's systems are equipped with a 1.44MB 3 1/2-inch floppy drive because modern
systems are capable of booting from an optical or USB drive.
Regardless of format, some form of optical drive is usually installed, if for no other reason than to
install the OS or other software. If you don't really need an optical drive in the system otherwise, you
can use an external USB-connected optical drive on a temporary basis and build the system without
an internal (permanently installed) optical drive. An external hard drive is also worth considering if
you need extra removable storage either for portability or for data backups. Rewritable optical discs
cannot match the storage capacity of external hard drives, which can hold several terabytes of data.
You can now find external enclosures that include USB or FireWire ports (sometimes both) for $30
or less.
On a smaller scale, USB flash memory drives provide a much more compact storage solution that can
be carried with you wherever you go. The first generation of flash drives often stored as little as
16MB of data, but today's larger devices can hold 128GB or more.
Input Devices
Obviously, your system needs a keyboard and some type of pointing device, such as a mouse.
Although many new factory-built systems include a touchscreen for use with Windows 8, you will
still want to select additional input devices that you can use, depending on your situation.
Tip
As an alternative to touchscreen support (which is still not generally available separately for
