cdr - scsi vs ide

[atom]

I have no problems at all with my IDE HP 9110. I can surf the net, play winamp, watch a TV show on my tuner, and a DVD movie all at the same time and still burn at 8x (just tried it for the heck of it).

But I guess if you absolutely need to play Quake and burn a CD at the same time SCSI is the way to go.

 

[Oreo]

If you´ve got a pretty fast CPU (500MHz+) then you can basically do anything while burning, even with an IDE drive. I can play UT and Q3 while burning and I never get a coaster. I only burn at 4X, but I´m sure it would work at 8X with a faster drive. I can even copy 100MB+ folders from my HD which is on the same IDE channel, so I say screw SCSI and go IDE if that´s what you have in your system (if you already have an all SCSI system you might aswell go SCSI).

 

[Zucchini]

Xtremex,

let me clarify, i played q3 while burning at 2x because 2x was the max for my old burner. I havn't tried q3 using my 8x.. i don't lower the burn speed ever. 2nd of all, the scsi burners (non oem) tend to come with scsi cards.. so no point in argueing over that. Mine came with a adaptec 2940 i think.

Atom,

I do that too, but tv tuners don't really count as multitasking/winamp uses maybe 5% of a powerful system, but yea dvd movies kinda eat resources. If your dvd drive is on the same chain as your writer.. ouch.

 

[JokerF15]

well..i had an hp 9300i. on this sys i got here (in my sig) when i burned, the sys would slow down like hell. like i could barely surf the net. it would use 80+% of cpu.. that's gay. i just bought a yamah 8x4x24 scsi burner (externel) once i get my scsi card...then ill really know the diff.. hope it's a lot!!! i burn a lot so it's not like 7 mins every day, it's more like 1 hour of burning a day at 8x so it makes a diff.

 

[dakost]

I kind of wonder ... is everyone so bussy these days that still needs to multitask while cd burning ? How lond does it take to burn a CD with say an 'burn proof' IDE Plextor 12x CDR-10x CDRW-32x R CDROM these days ?

I am usying a 4x-4x-16x Yamaha i had only two coasters in 1 year. It takes 15 minutes for a burn and i got the 2 coasters because i was o'clking the PCI bus. As long as i keep it below 35 there is no problem, which means that i have to remember to bring it down from the 37 that i usually use.

If i am not mistaken a 10x CDRW should burn a CD in about 6 or so minutes ! A 12x CDR at around 5, or am i wrong ?

 

[Skooch]

I just purchased my first non-SCSI burner (Ive owned about four other SCSI burners), the 10X12X32 Plextor, and it reads an image to the harddrive in about 3 mins, and burns an entire CD image in an average of 6.5 minutes on a Duron 600 with 128 megs of ram under Win98SE. This seems to be plenty fast enough for me.

I believe investing in a SCSI burner at this point in time would only be wise if you have the fastest everything else on your system, or you already own a SCSI setup. If you really need to use the computer, or burn more than a few CD's in a day, then I would take the money saved from buying an IDE burner over the SCSI version, and start to save for a second computer system.

 

[Zucchini]

Well scsi still has its place until really good cd-rw-dvd drives come out. Without scsi you are limited to two hd's if you have a separate dvd/cdrw drive.

 

[Supergax]

Your not really limited at all. You can buy an ata/100 Promise controller card for 30 bucks, now you have 4 more devices. I have an onboard controller, and soon I will have 4 ide drives, and IDE burner, IDE cd-rom and IDE-DVD. Also, if you do go scsi and it's not onboard, a good adaptec card (ultra 160) costs about 200 bucks.

 

[Outfits]

saddy, I am using a Yamaha 4x4x16 SCSI burner and its great. However IDE burners have improved quite a bit since then. If I was going to buy one today the new Plextor IDE would be my choice and I don't see how you could go wrong with it.

 

[tar]

ok a good scsi burner is $300+ right and the card is $150+
which comes to $450+ for the scsi setup.
but ide burners are $150to $200+
so is it worth the $250 to $300 difference to go scsi?
and let's say you don't multitasking and you have a fast cpu.
is it worth it to go scsi???

 

[JokerF15]

well it's more like a good scsi burner (yamaha the one i got 199 at compusa, 169 after pm and coupon at staples),
a scsi 3 card, any will do, tekram 315u, u dont need to boot off it so no need for a host cpu. that's 17 bux + 10 shipping so lets say 30.

200 + 30 = 230
tax, other expenses etc: 250 max! id rather have that then a ide trust me! ive had both!

 

[saddy]

basically, the fight is between two drives for me.. i chose these two because of their prices..

$175 - COMPRO CD-R 7503S Int (8W20R) SCSI (comes with scsi-2 card)
$144 - YAMAHA CDRW 8824E IDE INT (8RW8W24R) OEM

i don't need rewrite capability (blanks are so cheap anyway). i know that the yamaha is pretty highly recommended for its features such as overburning and raw writing, etc.. and at the same time, it is cheap (considering the other highly recommended ones). that's the main reason why i thought about considering ide.. cos of this drive.

as for the compro, i can only gather that it's essentially a sanyo crd-r800s drive. i can't find any information about that drive so far, hence i know little about its 'extra' features. but being used to having a 2x scsi writer (with a 166 mhz cpu), seeing a scsi writer going for this price is tantalising for me.. but i won't know what i'm really getting. the other scsi drives are far more costly (personally).

from what i hear about the examples used for multitasking using ide writers, i think ide is really fine for me. i'm happy enough to be able to just stay online and burn a cd (being able to play a mp3 would be a bonus-like thing). 10 mins without quaking is not a problem for me. my cd writer usage is mainly for backing up stuffs which take up hdd space which i constantly need to have available. i'm using 500 mhz cpu, 128 mb, and running win2k.

i'm going to set up a system with the yamaha writer for a friend today. he is kind enough to lend the writer to me for a couple of days to try it out as a return favour. i'll report on what i think as soon as possible.

 

[xtreme2k]

i will be getting the Yamaha 24/8/8 IDE as well

hopefully it will be a nice drive

 

[xtreme2k]

well

i have tested my 700E

playing DivX (mpeg4) when burning at 4x

no coaster with my IDE HP drive

 

[saddy]

i've burned several cds so far now with the yamaha (all at 8x write).. just staying online.. tried playing a mp3.. not bad at all.. but didn't dare to be too ambitious and load more stuffs at the same time. when i ran some programs ('normal cpu usage' kinds) during the burn and watched the buffer status go down, i was expecting a coaster.. but it didn't happen. though i usually load the stuffs i want to use first before i burn during my scsi 2x days. but, is it fair to gauge 8x vs 2x? 8x obviously takes up more of a hdd's reading power.. unless i have a 8x scsi to compare it with..

8-9 mins is really a short time to burn a full cd though! feels great..

i've read about the burn-proof feature sometime back.. it's really nice.. too bad it isn't very common yet. i guess i would say, with some good sense of patience, an ide 8x is really worth the cash. scsi only when you really think you deserve the money to spend on that.. i don't think i do.. lol..

thanks for all the great feedback! do keep them coming.. i have friends who want to know more about the situation between scsi vs ide..

 

[randypj]

xtreme2k--amazing.....I can't even comment on your posts without using epithets.
Stephan--you're just not thinking it through. That I can forgive.

For your edification:

SCSI for readers and burners--UNLESS...UNLESS--you burn very little, multitask very little, do not care to burn otf (yes, some ide setups will otf--good luck), or purchase a burn-proof IDE. SCSI hd's are NOT a necessity. AND, I have recommended, to certain relatives that they purchase cheap 2x2x6x burners, in the past. They did, and they realize the limitations. They can live with the limitations.

saddy--you're going at it the right way. Exploring the limitations. For your purposes, sounds like IDE will be fine.

32x Plex SCSI
40x Plex SCSI
12x4x32x Plex SCSI
WD 7200 hd's off Promise/66.
Cel 366@550, Asus P3B-F
CloneCD and Nero and CD Res-Q

Yes, I can play D2, burn audio clones at 12x, ~ every 6 minutes the tray ejects, I put another blank in, close the tray, next burn starts. All without even minimizing D2. OR, I can Ctl-Esc D2.
--Randy

 

[saddy]

sorry, may i ask what is otf?

 

[randypj]

saddy--On-The-Fly. Instead of ripping .wav files (for audio), or an ISO image (data) from the cd reader to the hard drive, then writing from the hard drive to the burner, you record from the cd reader to the cd writer, eliminating the step of first saving to the hard drive.

Finding the correct combination of cd reader and writer that can do perfect digital audio extraction (DAE) can be an interesting search. For some interesting reading you can check out www.cdspeed2000.com.

Yes, I realize there are other methods than cdspeed. For my Plextors, CDSpeed is perfectly accurate. Provide other URL's if you like.

saddy--it is a good feeling isn't it, to not even have time to leave your computer to go get a cup of coffee, before your burn is finished. I was stunned when I first got the setup. Also, stunned when I first got the Plextor reader.....almost 3 years ago. I would not believe that it provided accurate DAE at 24x. Now, 24x is not that amazing.
--Randy

 

[saddy]

ahh otf stands for 'on the fly'.. yes i've always liked otf.

 

[saddy]

by the way, this might sound too obvious, but i'll try anyway.. can i connect a scsi-2 device to a scsi-1 card? i don't even know if i make any sense there as i am an absolute stranger to the way scsi work among themselves. thanks again.

 

[DarkRipper]

My first CDRW (at home, anyway) was a 6x SCSI2 unit. I have since picked up a Seagate SCSI2 3 gb harddrive. I plan to copy the info to the SCSI harddrive from my IDE CDROM, then burn from the SCSI HD.

I will do this until I can afford all Ultra SCSI drives.

BTW, I have a IDE RAID setup, two IBM 30 GB drives on a stripe set.

All in all, a sweet setup.

DR