COMPUTER HARDWARE

3.5-inch Drive Bay



There are two types of 3.5-inch drive bays: internal and external. Internal 3.5-inch drive bays hold drives, like hard drives, that do not need to be touched from outside of the computer. External 3.5-inch drive bays hold drives, like floppy drives, that need their disks to be manually inserted from outside of the computer. Two popular 3.5-inch external bay drives are shown above. On the left is a Zip drive that is capable of storing 100 megabytes, (100,000,000 bytes), of information on Zip disks. On the right is a standard 3.5-inch 1.44MB, (1,440,000 bytes), floppy drive that stores considerably less information than the Zip drive. Due to the way information is stored on disks, disks always hold slightly less information than their maximum rated capacity. For example: a 1.44MB floppy disk will actually only hold 1.38MBs of information. Below is a picture of a 3.5-inch internalbay hard drive.

Hard Disk Drive



Hard drives are sealed and contain disks that are not removable. For this reason, they can be hidden inside of the computer, never to be seen. This is why most hard drives are internal bay drives. The hard drive is where your files and programs are stored for everyday use. They are always there unless someone or something erases them. A few hard drives are removable, so they must be mounted in an external bay. Usually these drives are mounted in a 5.25-inch external drive bay, since they require a special casing that they can be removed from and inserted back into. Normally, computers will have one or two external, and two or three internal 3.5-inch drive bays. The hard drive shown below has been opened to reveal what's inside.

COMPUTER HARDWARE

5.25-inch Drive Bay

5.25-inch external drive bays can hold several different types of hardware. A DVD burner, like the one shown above, is just one example. DVD burners are similar to CD burners except they can store much more information. DVD stands for Digital Versatile, (or Video), Disk. DVD(+/-)R Double Layer discs burn at two depths on one side of a disc. They are capable of storing up to 8.5 GBs of information. A Double Sided Dual Layered DVD disk burns at two depths on both sides of the disk. It is capable of storing up to 17 GBs of information. CD-R/RW disks can only store up to 700 MBs of information. DVD+R and DVD-R are two different formats for write-once DVD disks. DVD+RW and DVD-RW are two different formats for re-writable DVD disks. RW disks can be erased and re-recorded to, while R disks cannot. DVD-RAM disks are more like removable hard disks. They are not compatible with most DVD-ROM or DVD players. DVD-ROMs have a lower data transfer speed rating compared to CD-ROMs, but 1x for a DVD player is equal to around 9x for a CD player. 6x x 9x = 54x, which means a 6x DVD player's data transfer speed would be equivalent to a 54x CD-ROM.

Motherboard Battery

     
The battery is used to preserve the computer's clock time, and your BIOS settings while the computer is turned off. Some of the newer motherboards only need the  batter in case of a power outage. They draw the needed electricity from your house's electrical outlet, as long as the computer stays plugged in and the power does not get shut of. 
BIOS Basic Input/Output System
ROM PCI/ISA BIOS (0000006)
CMOS SETUP UTILITY
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