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muahahha, can i burn two DVDs at once?

Z

ZippyDan

Platinum Member
just a crazy idea that came to mind. if i put two DVD burners in my comp, would i be able to burn two DVDs at once? 😀

i know all about read/write limitations on PATA, so analyze according to the following options

1. 2 IDE Channels, HDD on Channel 1, 2 Burners on Channel 2
2. 2 IDE Channels, HDD and Burner on Channel 1, Burner on Channel 2
3. 3 IDE Channels (PCI controller card), HDD on Channel 1, Burner on Channel 2, Burner on Channel 3
4. 1 SATA Channel, HDD on SATA 1, Burner on IDE 1, Burner on IDE 2
5. All drives on SATA

so 1. and 2. wonder mostly how the IDE channels would deal with dual burning, whereas 3, 4, 5. wonder about whether the CPU/HDD would choke trying to burn two DVDs at once. i think

just fyi, the comp im thinking of doing this on is a 2600XP, 1 GB RAM, 160GB 7200rpm 8MB HDD, 2 IDE Channels, No SATA, and no real room or desire (yet) for a SATA or PATA PCI controller card

~Zippy!
 
I would say make sure the data being written isn't on the same hard drive. Make sure no other apps are open, and check it out.
I would also verify the data written so can determine whether or not it was worth it to burn 2 CDs at once.
Also, I like to be able to do other stuff on my computer while burning a CD, in this instance you would probably have to wait to use your computer as your cpu would be very stressed.
And good luck to you on that.
 
for the purposes of this question assume the data is on the same HDD. but if both HDDs were on the same IDE channel i dont see how it would make much of a diff if the data was on two separate HDDs anyway.

also i said DVDs not CDs

and yes, the CPU would be stressed with two DVD burnings, but that wouldnt stop me from trying to multitask!
 
If I get a second DVD burner in my work rig, I'll try to remember to give you a report.
 
Originally posted by: ZippyDan
just a crazy idea that came to mind. if i put two DVD burners in my comp, would i be able to burn two DVDs at once? 😀

i know all about read/write limitations on PATA, so analyze according to the following options

1. 2 IDE Channels, HDD on Channel 1, 2 Burners on Channel 2
2. 2 IDE Channels, HDD and Burner on Channel 1, Burner on Channel 2
3. 3 IDE Channels (PCI controller card), HDD on Channel 1, Burner on Channel 2, Burner on Channel 3
4. 1 SATA Channel, HDD on SATA 1, Burner on IDE 1, Burner on IDE 2
5. All drives on SATA


~Zippy!
Click to expand...

1.) 2 burners on one channel - not a good idea. It's not recommended to do a disc-to-disc copy when both optical drives are on the same chain. Writing to two drives on the same chain might be just as bad - especially if you have one drive writing, and the other one starts to spin up and do the Lead-in. This might momentarily lock out the entire chain - the first burner will go through its little bit of cache in less than a second, and you'll have to hope that the buffer underrun protection works.

2.) This should be better. The hard drive won't use the IDE channel for long, though heavy hard drive use while a disk is being written (from something like loading lots of apps) might botch the write.

3.) This is a very good option - everything on its own IDE chain definitely helps.

4.) Even better, as you'd be moving the hard drive to a better interface.

5.) I don't know if there's much point though to moving the optical drives to SATA, as they probably wouldn't even stress an ATA/33 connection.


Exactly how often are you planning to be writing two DVD's at once? Does it really justify all the trouble?
 
Originally posted by: Pabster
Yes, you can. I used to do this all the time on my all-SCSI dual rig.
Click to expand...

All SCSI? Like, with command queueing and all the other nifty things that make SCSI better than IDE? 😛

😀Well, there's your solution then - upgrade everything to SCSI.
 
hmm...I have a firewire/USB2.0 box with a DVD burner in it. If I had one in the case, then I'm sure I could burn two at once. I think ripping two DVD's would pose more of a challenge than burning them! 😉
 
Originally posted by: Jeff7
All SCSI? Like, with command queueing and all the other nifty things that make SCSI better than IDE? 😛

😀Well, there's your solution then - upgrade everything to SCSI.
Click to expand...

Not a bad idea! 😀
 
As far as bus bandwidth goes, there is no issue. But, in terms of hard disk speed and avoiding buffer underruns (coasters) it is a bad idea.

You can get a 16x DVD burner (only makes sense to get the fastest possible if you are gonna get 2 for parallel burning, no?), which goes 22MB/s. A good hard drive is only 40-50MB/s when you get near the end of the disk, ignoring seeks from fragmentation (60-70MB/s near the beginning of the disk where your OS is probably installed), so you are likely to get buffer underruns burning 2 different things at once.

Using the option in Nero to burn multiple disks simultaneously with identical data you will be ok, but I suspect that is not what you are asking.
 
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