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Best Ext. CDRW for laptop?

S

sswany

Member
I'm using a Dell Inspiron 8000 and love it, but I don't want to buy one of the modular CDRWs because I don't want to pay what they want for them. I have builtin FireWire, but I'm trying to figure out the best way to do it. You can buy BUSLink FireWire CDRWs for around $140, but i could also build one with an internal CDRW, which I've looked at. The other option is USB, which would nice to have a USB powered one, but I don't know how fast they would be.

Any information would be appreciated.

thanks you guys.
 
The bandwidth limit of USB restricts burning to approximately 4X speed.

Firewire would get my vote - you can go to 16x burn speeds and beyond, but the drives are a little pricey.

You can find empty external Firewire cases on Pricewatch.com, mate it with any internal EIDE CDRW drive and you will probably save around $50 or so.

Good luck!
 
can't offer you a model but unless your usb is usb2 then you'll probably only be able to burn at x4 max.
the firewire option will allow you faster burning than usb1.1!
 
I dont know whats the BEST but I use a Sony Spressa usb model. Its not self powered usb but I have yet to make a coaster out of it.
 
I've had very good luck with Iomega's regular external USB CD writer and with their Predator external drives. (Just throw away the included software.) The Predator model I use with my Dell I7500 is both USB and Firewire. Unfortunately, I don't have a firewire port on my notebook. 🙁

- Collin

Ooops! Meant to mention that the Predator is VERY lightly constructed. I've owned it for a few months and nothing has gone wrong with it, but I'm sure that it wouldn't take much abuse.
 
since you have firewire i would definately go that route...
newegg isn't the only place for this stuff just for an idea of price there firewire enclosure is $96 plus a cd-rw $86 makes your price roughly $182 neglecting tax if applicable
now you can easily find faster or cheaper drives if you want (i chose the asus 24x10x40 b/c of the name and anything above 24x doesn't get a whole lot faster...)
buying this would give you a lot of options as well if you want to in the future get a dvd burner etc you will be able to reuse the same enclosure...
now as for the usb drives if you are willing to invest in a usb 2.0 card for your lappy i would suggest that is the way to go (again then you have the option of whether or not to get a manufactured one or make one of your own w/ an enclosure...)
but in reality if it were me i would go w/ the firewire drive due to the speed (cuz if you do get a usb 2.0 card you can't put anythign that is not 2.0 on it or your burner would be slowed to 1.1 speeds...)

just my thoughts
Josh
 
I went the very cheapest route with my Inspiron 4100 and CD-ReWriter. I got a 4x Philips burner for abour $89 after MIRs. Works fine for my notebook if a bit slow . . . I'll be back from Hawaii after 3 months and to my faster desktop and CD-RW next week.

If your notebook is your primary system, I'd suggest the firewire rewriter. If you are constantly on the go with it, I'd get the Dell internal. The Dell notebook CD-RW is currently $259 and is only 8x (with occasional sales).
 
well the predator with the firewire addon sure looks good. but its still only 8x. you can pick up a sony external 24x but those will not work on firewire.


$130 or so, buys you a pcmcia slim cdrw on ebay. you probably might also wanna consider just buying an internal cdrw for your 2nd media bay on the 8000 on ebay. much cheaper
 
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