The Best PC Money Can Buy

HDD: Seagate ST3750640AS 750 GB x 2 (Rs. 24,200)
Western Digital Raptor 150 GB x 2 (Rs. 15,000)
A power user will normally have multiple drives, which will be assigned different task roles as per requirements. Hence for our storage purposes, we decided to divide our HDD section into two parts. Our first part consists of just plain storage, where the emphasis is more on space rather than performance. For this, we chose Seagate’s 750 GB drive, which is the biggest drive available now. Built on the SATA II platform using Perpendicular Recording Technology, this is a BIG drive. Combine it with the RAID support built onto our chosen motherboard and you get a fairly decent 1.5 terabytes of space to play around with.

The second part of our division called for a fast HDD solution. For this, we did not spend too much time searching. The only solution that made sense were a pair of Western Digital Raptors, which run at 10,000 RPM in a raid 0 setup. These drives can be used as the primary Windows installation drive for incredibly fast performance.

Optical Drive: Sony BWU-100a (Rs. 40,000)
2006 has seen the advent of both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD products. Both are next-generation optical storage formats, and can hold as much as 2-4 times more data on their discs. Keeping this in mind, we had a quick look around to see which the ideal format to use with our rig. HD-DVD has no commercial writer available for general consumer use. Blu-Ray has products has available both from Sony and Pioneer.

The drive therefore we chosen here is the Sony BWU-100a, which not only has support for Blu-Ray burning but supports all previous technologies like CD/DVD burning, making it universally compatible. It gives you the capability, of backing up 50 GB of data at one time and is therefore indispensable in our roundup.