The BeBox Circa 2001

Want to build the ultimate BeOS Dream Machine?

Magnetic storage is so cheap nowadays that even if you don't think you could ever use it up, you might as well get tons of hard disk space without breaking the bank. However, this only applies to IDE drives, which are just about given away, while SCSI units of equivalent size still cost quite a bit. Not to worry, though, as modern ATA/100 drives perform almost on par with their SCSI counterparts, particularly as far as regular desktop applications go.

In any event, one particular bargain is IBM Deskstar 75GXP, a 45GB drive. With performance near the top of the pack and prices near the bottom, this unit seems to be the one to get at the moment. If you plan on installing multiple operating systems, or doing a lot of graphics work, then $147 that you would pay for one is money well spent. To tell the truth, however, we are not partial to IBM. Hard drives are becoming more and more of a commodity, so if you can find a good deal on a high capacity unit from Quantum, Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, Fujitsu, or Samsung, there is no reason to take IBM over any of them. Just make sure you are getting one that's rated at 7200rpm and you should be in a good shape.

One more thing. If you choose a BX-based motherboard, you will probably need to buy an extra ATA/66 controller for your hard drive. The most popular one around is Promise Ultra66 PCI, which can be had for as little as $19.

A brand-agnostic philosophy can be also applied to CD-ROM drives, which are, for the most part, highly indistinguishable. Still, there is one that clearly stands out, and that is Kenwood TrueX 72x. Not only does this reader provide superior performance which is consistent across all the areas of a disk being played, it is also one of the quietest units on the market. In order to achieve such impressive results, the engineers at Kenwood are employing a groundbreaking split-beam technology which allows their drives to read 7 tracks at the same time.

On the other hand, if $89 sounds like a whole lot of money to pay for top-notch CD-ROM performance, then there are plenty of other less costly brands, such as Creative Labs, Acer, Delta, and Hi-Val.

Of course, a lot of BeNews readers would not be satisfied with just a plain CD player and are more than willing to pay a little extra to get CD-RW capabilities. However, none of the burners listed on Be's support site are any longer produced, so we must rely on user feedback to know which ones actually work.

It appears that most of the newer Plextor and Toshiba drives are indeed compatible. Our current recommendation is PlexWriter 12/10/32A, which will set you back about $202. You could obviously go for a 16x unit, but at this kind of speed you might have some problems with real-time audio decoding.

What about DVD-ROM, you might ask? Well, for that we'll have to wait until Be resolves the licensing issues. In the meantime, the slot-loading 16x drives from Pioneer seem to be all the rage.