Secondary And Optical Storage
Mass Storage Drive: Samsung F3 1 TB
Our operating system and programs will consume most of the available storage from our SSD array, necessitating an extra drive for storing the fruits of our labor. That drive doesn’t need record-breaking speed, but Samsung’s fast 1 TB F3 drive comes in at a top-value sub-$70 price.
Read Customer Reviews of Samsung's F3 1 TB
The HD103SJ is certainly large enough for our needs, but those who require additional storage space or the data security of RAID 1 redundancy will find that adding a second unit provides just as much value as the first.
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHBS212
Thirteen floppies for an OS? Six CDs for a game? Some of our programs are now arriving on multiple DVDs. Anyone who’s accumulated hours of waiting for “please insert media” prompts should understand why we’re constantly pushing the latest removable media standards into our high-end builds, and that’s before we even consider the enhanced video standards that usually accompany these technologies.
Read Customer Reviews of Lite-On's iHBS212
With 12x BD-R, 2x BD-RE, and 16x DVD-R writing capabilities, the iHBS212 looks like a steal at its $120-$130 fluctuating price. On the other hand, people who like waiting for media prompts and hate high-resolution video will argue against these drives at any price, and there's not a whole lot we can do about that.