Auxiliary Storage Devices

In addition to your hard drive(s), you will undoubtedly want to install other drives on your homebuilt computer. We're calling these "auxiliary drives" to distinguish them from the hard drive. Auxiliary drives include:

 

Optical Drives

Optical drives include CD-ROM drives, CD-RW drives ("burners"), DVD-ROM drives, and DVD+/-RW drives. They use lasers to read and/or write data. Some optical drives combine various features; for example, there are drives that will read DVD's as well as write CD-R's or CD-RW's. Unless you are planning on doing a network install, you will need at least one optical drive to install the operating system and other software on your new computer.

 

Floppy Drives

The venerable floppy drive has seen better days. Many new computers don't even come with floppy drives any more. But we still like them because they are useful for running diagnostic programs. (We also don't like admitting that, like the floppy drive, we are getting old...)

 

ZIP Drives

ZIP drives are high-capacity magnetic drives that can hold 100MB, 250MB, or 750MB of data, depending on the model. When CD-writers first came out, many predicted the eventual demise of ZIP drives. But the ZIP format has defied the odds and remains a popular removable storage medium.

 

Card Readers

Card reader / writers are not really "drives," per se, but they are treated as such by the operating system.

If you do digital photography or have any other reason to move data between your computer and a card storage device, then a built-in card reader / writer will make a very nice addition to your new PC. Many of them also read floppy disks, in addition to various types of memory cards. They're the kind of thing you don't realize you need until you have one.

 

Tape Drives

Once the industry mainstay for data backup, tape drives are gradually fading into history as newer, faster, and often less-expensive backup solutions like network backup take their place. But there are a few of us old geezers left who still like them.

 

 

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Getting Started

• Components
  • Storage Devices
    • Hard Drives
    • Other Storage Devices (This page)