Magoo's Wise Words
Guide to Buying a Computer

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CD drive

The CD-Rom has become a definite necessity. Most operating systems, programs, games, drivers, music, and anything else you might want on your computer will come on a CD Disk, and you need a CD-Rom to read those disks. CD Drives come in two main varieties, IDE interfaces and SCSCI. SCSCI drives are usually high performance and high cost, and require a SCSCI controller on the motherboard (or add-in card.) For most users, IDE is the way to go.

Many CD drives today can not only read CD's, but can also write them. CD burners are a great way to store large amounts of data (700MB/ CD) and also allows you to transfer data between computers easily. Many of the newer CD Burners can also erase CD's and rewrite them (if the CD is designed to be erasable.) Although I haven't had much luck with rewriteable CD's, they are always being improved and it is a great replacement for obsolete floppy drives.

CD drives are rated for the speed that they can read and write data. The speed is reported as the number of times the drive is faster than the very first generation of CD-ROMs. For example, a 48x CD-ROM can read data 48 times faster (roughly) than the first CD-ROMs ever produced.

CD burners will have a rating that looks something like: 48x24x12. In this example, this drive reads at 48x, writes at 24x, and rewrites at 12x. In general, faster is better. In reality, you won't notice much difference between 40x and 52x, so get something with a decent speed rating and a reasonable price. Emprex has impressed me lately by producing reliable drives at very reasonable cost.

DVD Drive

A DVD-ROM allows your computer to read DVD's. When these drives first came out, it was just cool to be able to watch movies you your computer. Now, some software (especially games and operating systems) is starting to come on DVD's, so a DVD drive now has a very practical purpose.

You can also buy a DVD burner. These are just like CD burners, except that they can burn data onto DVD's instead of CD's. Most DVD burners are capable of writing to both mediums. Although slightly more expensive, DVD's hold a lot of data (4.7 GB). Their massive storage capacity and relatively low cost are making DVD's the first choice of people looking to back up their large hard drives.

With a Dual Layer DVD burner and special dual layer discs, they can hold twice as much - a whopping 9.4 GB of data on a single disc! Dual layer DVD's are still more expensive than they are worth, but the prices have started to come down and will likely fall rapidly in the near future.

Next =>[Magoo's Guide to Computer Shopping- Page 8, Sound Card, Floppy Drive, and Case]