Summer PC: Hard disk and DVD drive

We have well progressed into the building of our two Summer PCs. But we still need to add a hard disk drive and a DVD drive. The later is no problem. the choice is huge and product differences are minor. Since I love the Pioneer drives (they are really reliable and used by other companies who just add their name stickers to the Pioneer drives), I selected the Pioneer DVR 112D drive. But honestly, there are many more that you can chose from with very similar characteristics. Both PCs will have one (Gran Turismo as well as Easy Penny).

I also love the Seagate-branded hard disk drives for their solid reliability (not only on specification documents), for their good prices, for their welcome silence and for their neat performance. Gran Turismo will like to hold a 320GB disk such as a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 – 320GB of SATA 300 ncq interface with a cache of 16MB (ref# ST3320620as). But Easy Penny will receive a smaller one -always thinking of keeping costs low- with a Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160GB of SATA-II interface with a cache of 8MB (ref# ST3160811as).

The less expensive PC could receive a slightly more expensive and bigger disk but its utility stays limited while its owner does not use it to store large amounts of videos or to install big software applications (but they are themselves often too expensive for a limited budget).

Samsung could also be an option to ponder about if you look for even better noise elvels. The small Samsung SpinPoint series has a very good fame here.

The USB interfaces of both PC allow to connect USB memory keys. For the digital photo amateur a useful 10€ or 15€ addition would be a Flash card memory reader compatible with Flash SD or Compact Flash (or a 13-in-1 reader, or the integrated Flash card reader of a high-end LCD monitor).

We will add more to the configuration in future posts, but we currently have:

• Gran Turismo: 32€ for a Pioneer DVR 112D drive and 79€ for a 320GB Seagate disk drive (current total: 919€)
• Easy Penny: 32€ for a Pioneer DVR 112D drive and 62€ for a 320GB Seagate disk drive (current total: 411€)

All prices are the best we could find in France at writing time.