http://i35.tinypic.com/zmjl9u.png

Already have the optical drives covered. Will probably bump it up to 4gb ram.

Go intel. There is no reason not to. And go either Seagate or Western Digital for hard drive

$$$ is the reason not to.

And I've had hard drives of all makes and had no appreciable difference in luck between any of them. I guess Seagate's 5yr warranty is nice, but I think most manufacturers are matching it nowadays?

Either get a Seagate 7200.11, or a WD AAKS drive. If you can, get the Samsung F1 1TB, it's even faster.

The 640GB Samsung might be an idea, too.