Maxtor's DiamondMax Plus 9 drive is fast and quiet, and adds a lot of storage to a system in a snap.

Drives
The next step in boosting your performance can come with a bigger hard drive. Applications are storage hungry, and if you find yourself shuffling files around you may be due for another hard drive. By adding more storage to your system, you give yourself a little breathing room to store your video files, renders and so forth. Hard drives can be bought online or in any computer store. 80Gb of storage now runs for about $150 in a store. Installing a drive is terribly easy, and most drive makers include detailed instructions on how to add a second hard drive. While it may not make your system faster per se, it will definitely make for a better computing experience having gobs of storage for your files. You should beware of the hard drives larger than 140Gb though. You’ll find that only newer motherboards (depends on the board’s BIOS) can handle drives over 137Gb on a single drive.

However one particular hard drive brand includes a handy workaround. Maxtor’s 200Gb DiamondMax Plus 9 includes a PCI hard drive interface card that not only lets you access all 200Gb on that monster of a drive, but upgrades your hard drive transfer speeds up to the ATA-133 standard. Older systems are typically at ATA-66, so this will double the ceiling on how fast your drive can burst data to your computer and back. Most of the retail DiamondMax Plus 9 drives include this card, no matter what size drive you get. Plus these 7200rpm drives are extremely reliable and very quiet. None of my Maxtors have ever failed me, and the 200Gb model Maxtor sent me for testing has performed admirably in corralling all my video and animation files.

A nice addition to any system is a burner like this 48x CD-RW made by Plexwriter.

Even upgrading older CD-RW drives can be a nice addition to your system. Burners of three years ago run at about 8x speed, compared to today’s 52x speeds. Don’t let those numbers fool you, though. An 8x CD-RW can write a CD-R in about 5 minutes, while a 48x or 52x speed can cut that time to about 2 minutes. If you find yourself burning a lot of CDs, you’ll definitely appreciate the extra few minutes you get for the $60-80 investment in a new burner. Swapping them out is fairly easy and again, most manufacturers include good instructions with their burners.

Plextor’s 48x drive is a rock solid upgrade to any system, and is the favorite brand for many professionals. OEM drives (those made by a third party manufacturer to specifications) cost less and keep up with the same performance. Mitsumi puts out a new 52x burner that rips through CDs pretty quickly. I would say there’s a minimal speed difference between 48x and 52x though. If you have anything less than a 16x, consider a new drive.

Hi-Speed USB makes transferring information more efficient. USB logo is a trademark of Universal Serial Bus Implementers Forum, Inc.

USB/Firewire Ports
Chances are your computer has a couple of USB ports. But it’s highly unlikely it has Hi-Speed USB, which is up to 40x faster than the older USB (v 1.1). It’s also unlikely that your PC has a Firewire port, unless you specifically asked for one when you bought it.

USB and Firewire are quickly becoming the defacto input standards for PCs. Almost any peripheral device out there is available in either USB or Firewire. Firewire, for example, lets you capture video directly from your DV camcorder. Some new devices let you capture video from your TV or VCR using Hi-Speed USB ports instead. External hard drives and CD or DVD burners also come in either Hi-Speed USB or Firewire flavors. Adding Hi-Speed USB and/or Firewire won’t boost your system speed, but it will definitely open doors for you. If you work or are a student in the video industry, having Firewire is essential.