Choosing internal mass storage once meant deciding between the performance of a solid-state drive (SSD), the capacity of a mechanical hard drive (HDD), or the greater expense of both. But as with system memory, advancements in manufacturing and maturing technology put medium-capacity SSDs within reach for most enthusiasts. We're even seeing 256 GB drives under $100. That SSD might not make processing-bound workloads run faster, but they'll certainly launch quicker, access the data they need more expediently, and respond in a way you simply won't experience with a hard drive.

Of course, you'd still need a handful of high-capacity SSDs if you were planning on storing your photo, movie, and game collections on solid-state storage. Fortunately, adding the expense of a 1 TB disk for under $60 makes the combination of just-right SSD and big hard drive more palatable.
The flash-based capacity you'll want depends on what you do with your PC. A Windows installation rarely exceeds 32 GB without additional programs installed, even after many months of collecting temp files, cookies, and other "temporary" trash. Popularly-used apps like the Office suite and Adobe's Creative Cloud software can easily consume many times that much space, and games regularly eat up more than 10 GB each all on their own. Most of us could squeeze Windows and essential programs into a 128 GB SSD without much effort, but 256 GB drives are the sweet spot if you're adding a few games, too.
Mechanical storage becomes critical once you start piling on years of pictures, music, and movies. DVD and Blu-ray disc images consume up to 8.4 and 50 GB, respectively. If you love to archive video, your capacity needs will expand very fast this way. Game install packages can be even larger than the games themselves, and those of us with less-than-perfect Internet access are reluctant to delete source data, even when installation finishes.
Although SATA is the most popular desktop storage interface, other drive form factors are becoming more popular. Among them, mSATA is both widely available and mature. Designed to install onto a motherboard, these have become so common that some companies produce adapters to install mSATA drives into 2.5” bays using standard SATA data and power cables.

Beyond mSATA, we're also starting to see M.2- and SATA Express-capable platforms. They're still not very common, but because they both enable PCI Express-based transfers, the performance of future storage products will outstrip today's SATA 6Gb/s drives. As a reminder, just one PCI Express 2.0 lane gives you up to 500 MB/s of bidirectional throughput. A two-lane link should be theoretically capable of 1 GB/s. Meanwhile, SATA 6Gb/s is rated for up to 600 MB/s, though a more practical ceiling is in the 550 MB/s range.

Though most systems use either one large drive or a combination (a smaller SSD and larger hard drive, for example), other configuration options let you choose between additional performance, more capacity, increased data security, or a combination of these.
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, a group of methods that allows data to be spread across several drives concurrently. Most enthusiast-class motherboards support at least RAID modes 0, 1, 0+1, and 5. Each array of disks appears to be a single disk to programs other than the RAID utility.
The possible use of RAID affects the number and capacity of drives selected, so a very brief description of these modes is in order:
- Level 0 divides data into chunks that are spread across two or more drives at the same time, providing up to double the transfer rate (in the case of a two-drive config) and the combined capacity. Because of the way the data is divided, this mode is also referred to as "striping" by in-the-know storage gurus. The major drawback is that if a member drive fails, the array's data is lost.
- Level 1 mirrors two or more drives so that if one fails, data can be recovered from the other. The major drawback is that because both drives (again, in a two-drive array) store the same data, available capacity doesn't increase.
- RAID 0+1 allows four (or more) drives to be set up as a "mirrored" set of "striped" drives. In other words, it's a RAID 1 array composed of two RAID 0 arrays. If one striped set (RAID 0 array) fails, data can be retrieved from the other. Total capacity is still limited to that of one striped set.
- RAID 5 creates parity bits for data recovery. Data and parity bits are distributed across all drives, increasing transfer rate, while sacrificing only the amount of space required to store the added parity bits (the capacity of one drive in the set).
Generating parity bits for RAID 5 requires processing, which means that RAID 5 enabled in software can hog resources. Conversely, RAID Levels 0 and 1 generate little CPU overhead. Gamers with little regard for long-term data storage may choose Level 0 for performance, and anyone with a significant amount of valuable data may choose Level 1.
Tom's Hardware continuously reviews drives and storage controllers, with several of these articles going into additional detail concerning RAID modes, benefits and consequences.
- Step One: Size Up A Case
- Step 2: Select Your CPU
- Step 3: Select Your Graphics
- Step 4: Select A Motherboard
- Step 5: Select Memory
- Step 6: Select Storage
- Step 7: Select A Power Supply
- Other Components
- Step 8: Choose Your Vendor
- Step 9: Preparing For Assembly
- Step 10: Build The Platform (CPU, Cooler, And DRAM)
- Step 11: Install Motherboard And Power Supply
- Step 12: Install Cables, Cards, And Drives
Cheers!
Cheers!
Wonderful as usual toms.. Appreciate it..
Great article! No doubt this is going to help a lot of folks.
Thanks, guys!
I think you missed a section for "SLI - XFire", but it's great overall. Since its a guide for folks with little to no knowledge, I think it would help them to dispel myths and get some facts over XFire and SLI.
Cheers!
First I put the motherboard into the PC (not fastened) to see where the standoffs are going to be placed onto the case. Also I note what routes I'm going use for my cabling. Then I take the motherboard out and insert the standoffs and port plate into the case. Also I take my case cables (power sw, reset sw, USB, front audio and mic cables and put a twist tie around them all and place them near where they are to be plugged into the motherboard. These cables are easy to lose track of.
Next I place the power supply, and "bay devices" (optical drives, non-removable storage, etc) into the case and have those cables attached and either hanging over the outside of the case or routed behind the motherboard tray. This obviously depends on how you determined the cables will be routed earlier.
Then I take my motherboard, put the CPU, RAM, and cooling system on as much as I can. Then I place the whole thing into the case - usually at an angle at first, leading with the side with the RAM (which is normally going behind the case bays in smaller cases) in first.
At this point it's just a matter of aligning the motherboard with the standoffs and port plate. Plug it all in (including the case plugs which are conveniently out of the way and together).
Power it all on and volia!
Otherwise, it was a good article. People who are uncertain of building their own PCs can learn a lot from it.
The 647W is measured at the wall socket, as the article mentions input power. After taking into account the 85% efficiency of their power supply in this example, the PSU is only outputting 549.95W to the PC components at max load. Adding some headroom they come to the 600W PSU recommendation.
Personally I'd like a little more headroom, but the calculations in the article are correct.
Building your own is great fun, and most serious users should probably give it a try at least once in their lives. Given that, I'd recommend an annual "refresh" of this article, with updated info and re-validated links to corresponding reference articles and resource forums.
A great service to your readers!
I wanted to comment on the power supply part of the article. One is the efficiency and the total cost to use versus the front end purchase cost. A less efficient system will obviously create more total heat as wasted energy. But aside from possibly making someones room rather uncomfortable, it also increases your airconditioning energy use. A good rule of thumb is that an AC system will use 50% of the heat energy. To add the total annual cost, multiply that times the percentage of the year that the AC is on. So your example of a 647W system with 85% PSU would give (550W used):
647W - 550W = 93W at plug
93W * 50% = 47W AC energy
Total Energy (summertime) = 93W + 47W = 140W
If the AC were on the while year and the PC were on continuously, this is about $140 annually, or almost $12 per month added electricity in the summer. If you did the same thing with a cheap 70% efficient system, you get $248 annual cost which is $20.63 per month summertime cost. At a difference of $8, it does not take many months (of continuous on!) to make the more efficient PSU make much more sense.
The other topic I wanted to comment on is ESD. I am an engineer and work with ESD issues everyday. It is a very real an poorly understood issue by many because of the often hidden or delayed failures that it causes. ESD many time causes walking wounded damage without an immediate failure, which finally fails several months later. And if you look at websites sell PC parts, many people complain of DOAs. Many, many DOAs are caused by ESD. Memory, CPUs, motherboards, HDDs, and other sensitive systems are often returned as DOA, driving up the cost of the PC enthusiast market and adding frustration. In research texts, they estimate the global electronic failures due to ESD to be 40-60% of the total failures over product life.
So that little $5 ESD wrist strap is money well spent. Buy one and reduce your heartburn.
Charles
So that little $5 ESD wrist strap is money well spent. Buy one and reduce your heartburn.
Charles
The only problem with wrist straps is that most people don't want to be "tied" to anything. They're a great idea that's really rarely needed. Feel free to say otherwise if you live in the desert.