Laptops Buying Guide

WHICH TYPES OF DRIVES DO I NEED?

First, decide how big your hard drive needs to be. This depends on how much data you want to store. After that, determine what you'll use your notebook for. Will you be tackling the most basic computing tasks, or do you worship Scorsese and plan to make your own DVD movies?

Hard drive | CD and DVD drives | Swappable versus fixed | External drives

Hard drive

A notebook hard drive removed from the system

This magnetic disk provides you with space to save programs and files indefinitely -- or at least for the life of the drive. Laptop hard drives can be bigger than 60GB, but these giant drives cost hundreds of pounds more than the default 20GB laptop drives. You'll need only a 20GB or 30GB drive unless you store lots of movies or thousands of pictures. Be warned that capacity alone does not make a good hard drive. The hard disk's rotational speed also makes a big difference; a 5400rpm notebook disk delivers significantly faster performance than a 4200rpm model. The faster the disk spins, the better your laptop will perform overall.

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CD and DVD drives

Unless you're on a strict budget, get at least a CD-RW drive

You need at least a CD-ROM to install software, of course. But unless you're buying a budget laptop, don't settle for anything less than a CD-RW drive so that you can burn your own CDs. For watching movies and playing monster games on the road, consider a CD-RW drive that doubles as a DVD drive. Some notebooks now offer DVD-rewritable drives, which can store up to 4.7GB on one disk. But unless you need to store huge files, such as movies, you may not need the more expensive DVD-RW drives.

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Swappable versus fixed

Here's a media module slipping into a swappable drive. Fixed drives won't let you remove the module

The least expensive notebooks come with 'fixed' (built-in) drives. In other words, if you buy your notebook with a fixed DVD-ROM, you're stuck with that drive. A 'swappable drive bay', on the other hand, gives you optimum flexibility. For instance, you can pull out the DVD-ROM drive and swap in a combo DVD/CD-RW drive or even a second battery on many notebooks. We recommend choosing a swappable bay if you can afford it. Keep in mind, however, that the smallest and lightest ultraportable notebooks may include neither fixed nor swapped optical drives, relying instead on external USB drives.

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External drives

This is an external drive tethered to a Sony notebook

'External drives' -- storage and media-burning options that hook up to your laptop via cable -- come in many shapes and sizes. Most of these drives hook up to your laptop's USB or FireWire connector. Drive choices include external floppy, CD-ROM, combo DVD/CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-RW, hard drive, Zip, LS-120 and others. There are also smaller external drives that plug directly into your USB connector without a cable. These little drives, often called flash drives, are brilliant for transferring small amounts of data between notebooks or between notebooks and PCs. Many notebook users don't need external drives, but there are scenarios that require them. For instance, if you buy a tiny ultraportable that lacks a built-in CD-ROM drive, make sure you get an external one so that you can load software.

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