Memory, Hard Drives, Optical Drives

Kingston HyperX 3x1GB 1800Mhz DDR3

Kingston is a name in the computer world known for making dependable RAM with specialization in both the OEM and high-end memory segments. The memory used for this build is a Triple-Channel (3x1GB) HyperX kit rated for speeds up to 1800Mhz, with latency timings of 9-9-9-27. This kit is comprised of 3 sticks of matched memory, 1GB each, for a total system memory of 3GB. Each stick also sports a heatsink for increased thermal efficiency. One of the features of the Nehalem architecture is the Quick-Path Interconnect, or QPI, which replaces the traditional front side bus and is specifically designed to compete with AMD’s HyperTransport. One of the resulting innovations of the QPI is the use of a Triple-Channel memory system, theoretically increasing overall memory bandwidth.

Western Digital VelociRaptor 10,000RPM SATA

Two 10,000RPM Western Digital VelociRaptors, configured in RAID-0, support the operating system installation. The VelociRaptors support SATA at 3.0Gb/sec and come in at a capacity of 300GB each, for an array size of 600GB. CyberPower also installed an additional 1TB 7200RPM hard drive for extra data storage. That makes total capacity for this system 1.6TB, more than enough to store pretty much anything you can think of. Think of it this way, 1.6TB will store up to about 188 hours of 1080p video or 375,000 hours of MP3’s. That’s a shuffle list that probably wouldn’t repeat many songs anytime soon, given that you can think of that many artists to fill a drive of that size. (For me, it’s Celine Dion, all day, EVERYDAY.)

Western Digital VelociRaptor Hard Drive
Rotational Speed	10,000RPM
Read Seek Time	4.2ms
Write Seek Time	4.7ms
Track-to-Track Seek Time	0.7ms
Capacity	300GB
Interface	3.0Gb/s

Optical Drives

DVD burning is handled thanks to the Sony Optiarc AD-7201A DVD+RW. The Optiarc brand name is relatively new the marketplace, an offshoot of a merger a few years back between the optical businesses of Sony and NEC. The AD-7201A is a IDE DVD drive that reads DVD’s at 16x and writes DVD+RW at 20x. It also supports the LightScribe feature pioneered by Hewlett Packard. The second optical drive is a Lite-On 4x Blu-Ray player, the DH-401S. The DH-401S is a SATA BD drive with a DVD read speed of 12x.