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NEC 7170a dvd burner $29.99 shipped

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AMDZen, at the time of my post it was $36 shipped as stated per vadp.

I find it odd that Newegg would fluctuate its prices so often.
 
I picked up another 3550A during lunch for $31 shipped (+ 2 free CDRs... oooh).

I didn't want to jump into the new model just yet, and I'm still using beige bezels!
 
Couldn't find any reviews on this unit. I do like my 3550 maybe a chance they got better intead of worse? I'd buy benq as 1st choice but not available anymore.
 
Doesn't work on my DS3. Recognized in BIOS, shows up in MY COMPUTER. Cannot boot from it, cannot read a CD from it. Just dead!
 
The controller chip on the SATA optical identifies as serial, but it can be run in "legacy" mode in very recent mobo bios

And, you guys beter look carefully in your mobo manual - some SATA ready chipsets or addon chips dont support OPTICAL SATA drives on their individual ports
and the whole "IDE" thing would take me half hour to explain
all current drives are IDE - integrated drive electronics - the controller chip and all related data circuitry is on the drive PCB, as opposed to the old ancient days.
there is no such thing as IDE transfer, tansfers are ATA/ATAPI protocol
There is parrallel transfer, 40 wire, or 40 wire + 40 ground plane Xtalk shields (80 wire)
There is serial transfer - 7 wire with 2 up and 2 down data, 3 shield
Parallel has many data paths but low frequency (at limit now), serial has few channels but much higher frequency, much lower voltage
serial uses the same parallel ATA/ATAPI protocol as parallel
serial "drivers" add serial specific features, defacto stopping "bridging", also allow drive controller detection by XP

Its all about words and how they are employed in daily use.
Like the P5WDH mobo bios has things like RAID BASIC or ACHI for the JMicron SATA controller
ACHI forces "native mode" or SATA only and may not run optical
Basic is "legacy mode" or "IDE mode" and even regular MS non specific drivers will work

Quote from seagate:
Are there differences in SATA solutions by different HDD vendors?
Yes, there are two main methods for establishing the SATA interface on the disc drives and hosts, native and bridge.

The native method allows maximum throughput, bypassing the legacy Task File reads and writes, as well as the limitation of 133 Mbytes/sec for Ultra DMA Mode 6 transfers, enable the maximum 150 Mbytes/sec transfer rate for first-generation SATA devices.

A bridge solution enables the adaptation of a parallel device to the SATA interface. Because the SATA information flow occurs at 1.5 Gbits/sec, it is not always possible for the Link-state machines to keep up when using a bridge device. The link layers on a bridged system must incorporate buffering to allow for throttling the interface if one side gets behind.

More inside info:
http://www.ata-atapi.com/sata.htm
 
Only about a 50% satisfaction rating at newegg. I've seen that elsewhere also. Aftermarket firmware probably helps but should you have to do that for a new drive? Could void our warranty. My main prob is most burners can only burn media they know. MAybe you get an update in 6 months that get you farther down the road. If lucky some gearhead makes an update for you a yr later like ligg& dee for new media. Eventually you get some media it can't write to. Drive may have the physical ability but the firmware doesn't have a clue. I got a benq in jan that can learn new media. I collect wierd junk media from friends just to see if there is something that will choke it but so far it scores >85% in cdspeed usually >94%. Prob is benq is no more. Right now the samsung and lg are tops for most media but if you get an oddball or newer media it will suck too. New liteons have a learning and adaptive firmware but so far it can't write as well as the lg or samsung generally. Who knows if they will ever get it right. The worst dvd burner I've ever owner (or seen or even heard about ) was my liteon.
Sorry not thread crapping mainly industry crapping. I'm researching for friends and currently I advise wait until someone makes a burner as good as benq could last yr. If possible.
 
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