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How often do your optical drives die?

Rumpltzer

Rumpltzer

Diamond Member
My first CDRW (around 1997, a 2X for like $350) lasted me about 5 years. I probably burnt only about 100 CDs on it, and I sold it off on ebay.

I inherited an 8X burner from my roommate (free!), and that lasted me about 2-3 years (he had had it for maybe 2 years) until it stopped working in the fall. I used it maybe once or twice a month.

I bought an NEC 3200 DVD burner in November (~$78), and it died last week after about 5 DVD burns and maybe 20 CDs. I've RMA'ed it to Newegg, and I'm hoping they'll replace it.

Is this pretty typical stuff for optical drive lifetimes?
 
I've never ever had an optical drive die on me, and I have ones that have been going strong for a decade or so 😛
 
Couple thousand burns..

I would say 2 years..

Although, my Lite-on 40x @ 48x is still going strong after TONS of burns..
 
ive had 3 optical drives go bad on me, a 2x CD, a 6x CD, and a 24x CD. all that was a while ago 😛 nothing since then
 
Most of my drives are ancient. Only had 1 Creative Labs x36 drive die on me.

My dad used to have a 2x SCSI reader. Ahhhh the Amiga days 😛
 
My only deaths or incidents with optical drives:
- My sister's laptop, Dell Inspiron 2650, used an HL-DT-ST CD-RW/DVD GCC-4240N drive. These apparently were known to have a number of problems, including being unreliable, and often unable to burn discs at the drive's rated speeds. Her's suddenly was unable to read or write to CDs, but it could read DVDs. Finally had to ditch the drive and get a Toshiba combo drive, as the one in my Compaq had served me well.

- Pioneer 16x/40x DVD-ROM blew up my Giants: Citizen Kabuto Disc 1 CD. The drive sustained some minor damage inside - some small plastic supports were blown away - but it still worked. I didn't trust it after that, and retired it from service.

I don't think I've had any other technical problems with my optical drives - they left me mainly out of upgrades. I had a lot of 24x drives, but then 48x became dominant, so the reign of the 24x's came to an end.
I can't say I really use my drives that heavily though. I burn discs on average twice a week, and that's between two computers, CD or DVD. Reading has picked up a bit lately, as I'm sticking all my DVDs on the computer in XviD format - going to college soon, and I don't want to be dragging along a slew of DVDs that can get lost or stolen. With 2000kbps two-pass XviD, they take up a few square centimeters of a hard drive platter, and still look very nearly the same as the original.
But even that isn't much, as I own less than 20 movies on DVD.
 
Had 2 unknown age Lite-On 12x burners die for no reason (the burner part died, still read CD's tho), don't think they were very heavily used.
Had a no name brand DVD-ROM die after maybe a year or 2.
Got a CD-RW 32x still going strong after ~3 years I think it is now, probably only a couple/few hundred CD's burned. Love that burner.
DVD-RW that's about 6mo old still going after maybe 25 burns.
 
every 32 seconds another optical drive dies....they didn't tell you that when you burned your first one, did they...

truth.org
 
ive yet to have one of my one actually cease to function
the worst ive had is malfunctions which were fixed by a driver upgrade
 
Of the many dozens of optical drives I have had none have every died on me. I still have the first 1X Creative labs cd rom drive I bought over 13 yrs ago (for which I paid $500) and not too long ago I installed it on an old system with the original SB card (it was a proprietary connection than only worked on SB card), and that SOB still worked!
 
All of my drives have died, usually after 1 or 2 years of use.

It really doesn't bother me because by then they are usually obsolete.

My last cdrw drive went out with a bang, i was burning a cd, when i start to hear a sound like the cd was spinning off balance, next i hear a cracking sound.... when i open the tray i see the cd broken in 3 or 4 large pieces. I clean the mess, and try to burn a new cd, same result.
It didn't bother me, because i needed an excuse to buy a dvd burner.
 
I had the tray go bad on 2 of my 32x cd-rom drives so you have to pull and push it open, but other than that I've never had an optical drive actualy die, I've got some really old 12x and 16x cd-roms that don't like reading burnt discs or newer copy protected discs, but other than that I've got tons of old optical drives that still work, including a 2x creative cd-rom and a 1x Plextor scsi drive w/ caddies 🙂 hehe
 
I've had an optical drive die on me after two years. That was the only one I've had die on me. I have CD drives that are 10+ years old.
 
I have has a pioneer DVD drive die on me after 2 years...It was one of the first dvd-rom drives available....

I also had an Liteon LTD163 DVD-rom drive die on me as well after just 2 years.....


My burner have all been really good.....Most have lasted 2-3 years before I sold them and thus lost track of them....


At work I had 2 HP drives die in under 2 years...one burner and one DVD-rom....Never had a dvdburner die yet. (knock on wood)
 
I just remembered. I had POS NEC 3x cdrom, the SCSI one with the pull down door and you had to put the cd in a caddy, remember those? I had one die at work in 1997, they died left and right at work, I recall. But never had a personal drive die on me. Probably because I change before they have a chance to die. 🙂
 
I've found that most of the time an optical drive isn't really dead. Dust collects over the lens, causing most of the problem. Usually a can of compressed air sprayed inside, or one of those CD lens cleaner discs usually bring it back to life.
 
Originally posted by: Rumpltzer
My first CDRW (around 1997, a 2X for like $350) lasted me about 5 years. I probably burnt only about 100 CDs on it, and I sold it off on ebay.

I inherited an 8X burner from my roommate (free!), and that lasted me about 2-3 years (he had had it for maybe 2 years) until it stopped working in the fall. I used it maybe once or twice a month.

I bought an NEC 3200 DVD burner in November (~$78), and it died last week after about 5 DVD burns and maybe 20 CDs. I've RMA'ed it to Newegg, and I'm hoping they'll replace it.

Is this pretty typical stuff for optical drive lifetimes?
Click to expand...

nec 3200 is nonexistent! where di you get this number???
maybe 3520?
http://www.micheldeboer.nl/firmware/3500.html
 
They die all the time for me 🙁 i HATE optical drives they are the most unreliable part of my computer. i have new ones that dont read certain discs. all optical drives should die
 
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