Is the Plextore px-716a a good burner?

[gizbug]

I know it was a few years ago. Not sure if the new burners/ technology out there have put this burner as obsolete.

Would a SATA drive be better?

 

[Zepper]

The 716 (after the first batch) is one of the best burners ever made. If you have one that is working well, consider yourself lucky. I have a 712 that is still my main drive for burning - much better than the newer Samsung I have. I do most of my reading/playing with the Samsung to save wear and tear on the 712, but the Plexy gets the nod for my burning jobs. I thought it had gone TU a few weeks ago and was distraught until I found it was a Windows issue.
. If you want a cleaner burn, you don't want to burn much over 8x anyway or read/rip at over 32x or so. Higher speeds put a lot of stress on the discs - one weak disk can put your drive out of commish - permanently!

.bh.

 

[gizbug]

Well i think my plextor is dying.
Looking at the new samsung S203N

 

[Zepper]

I will continue to use PATA burners, as for some tasks/situations, SATA just won't cut it. Most, if not all, SATA burners are just PATA ones with an added PATA to SATA bridge chip...

I open my optical drives up about every 6 months and give them a thorough cleaning - esp. the lenses/mirrors. Cleanliness is next to godliness for sure with optical drives.

.bh.

 

[ginfest]

I have had my 716A for 2+ years and it's still going strong
i belive tha it must be "second generation" as I have never seen any of the problems that folks complaint about with the early drives. Like Zap I keep it clean but it gets plenty of use and outside of a cranky disk here or there never fails
The SATA burners main "claim to fame" are the use of the smaller cable, AFAIK there is no performance advantage SATA-PATA with burners.

 

[zig3695]

except when you try to put two drives on an ide channel and it simply doesnt work. too many problems with ide when you try to use both channels. sata is rock solid aways...

 

[Zepper]

I give each of my PATA drives its own channel - add-on controllers are cheap...

.bh.