Other good CDRW choices besides Plextor?

[techwanabe]

I've seen universal praise for Plextor CDRW drives here on Anandtech. I've called all the local big stores here in Syracuse like CompUSA, Best Buy, Staples and Office Max, and no one carrys this supposedly wonderful drive.

Just in case my boss really wants to purchase locally rather than mail order, are there any other good CDRW recommended brands and or models?

 

[okydoky]

Syracuse... It has been a long time since I lived up there. I was from Utica/Rome area. Anyway, I use an Acer 8432IA. 8x4x32. At Best Buy they are $149.00 in Houston. Have had only one coaster so far. I make images for audio cd's now and have not had one since. The true test was that the burns work on all my cdroms, the burner, home and car stereo and 4 other peoples computers. Darn nice for the price. Personally I think it could of used a bigger buffer but that does not seem to have been issue so far... Good luck...

 

[frustrated2]

If Best Buy carries the new TDK 12/10/32 drive that is actually a plextor in TDK clothing. I am not 100% certain that this is true but only plextor supports the new burnproof technology and the TDK has it also. Everyone on this forum is talking about the TDK being a plextor.I have another rebadge plextor that is an imation and it works greatAlso the Yamaha's are good burners to. Personally I am after a new burnproof model myself

 

[LarryJoe]

I asked the same question here a few days ago, check it out. Also, look here as well.

Bottom line - to the best of my knowledge, the Plextor 12/10/32 and the TDK 12/10/32 are the same drive with different face plates. Both with Plextor guts. After you read the threads you will see that I went back and forth about 20 times over 2 days, ordered the Plextor and then cancelled the online order when I got the Sunday paper and saw that BestBuy had the TDK for $220 after a $50 rebate and an instant $30 gift card. I was also sitting on a $40 gift card so I hoped in my car and picked it up. So far, no coasters, it sceams through burns using EZCD and CloneCD. The TDK come with Nero 5, which I do plan on installing.

LJ

 

[DrDap]

Not true about only Plextor supporting burn-proof. In fact, Plextor
only licenses burn-proof from SANYO. Sanyo will license the
technology to anyone willing to pay the required fee.

Similarly, Plextor drives use a lot of Sanyo components. Plextor
firmware is theirs, but I am not sure how much more of the basic
unit is proprietary.

DrDap

 

[frustrated2]

Does anyone else produce burnproof drives at this point in time?

 

[Teatowel]

Yamaha drives are reliable, perhaps second only to Plextor.

 

[WetWilly]

Teac, Iomega, and of course Sanyo also produce 12/10/32 BURN-Proof drives. Should be able to find the Iomega drives at the standard office supply stores.

 

[frustrated2]

Since these other companies currently produce burnproof drives. I would just be sure that whatever new drive I bought would have this feature and also being a plextor doesn't hurt either

 

[LarryJoe]

The TDK has burnproof technology.

 

[frustrated2]

So in other words since you want to buy it locally then it looks like TDK is the winner by a nose

 

[Kwad Guy]

BurnProof is a great thing to have for a high-speed *IDE* writer.
However, if you use a SCSI drive (and a source drive with appropriately
decent DAE properties for on-the-fly audio copying), it's
unnecessary.

I use a SCSI setup: Smart & Friendly Mach 12 (aka Sanyo) 12-4-32
SCSI writer, Plextor 40X CD-rom and Advansys 3940UA SCSI card.
I never coaster, and the cpu utilization during burns is never
more than 1-3%. I can surf while burning. I can play MP3s while
burning. I can do both while burning! All with tons of other stuff
open.

At any rate, most people seem to want IDE these days, and in that
case, Burn-Proof is a definite plus. But for SCSI, it's not important. IMHO.

Kwad

 

[LarryJoe]

Kwad Guy - you are correct on all accounts. It is not necessary for SCSI and more people are going IDE these days. With the costs of IDE devices being ultra low these days, especially hard drives, and the speed increases of ATA66 and ATA100, I would only reccomend SCSI to people doing video editing. SCSI was top choice for burning until now - i.e. burnproof.

LJ

 

[frustrated2]

I would have to agree with both of you. It probably isn't necessary to have burnproof on a scsi burner. I have a scsi burner(no burnproof) that I use with an ide harddrive and I can surf and have other apps running while burning without coasters. I don't think that I would want to open these apps up while burning but as long as they are already running it doesn't seem to bother anything. For general burning you could buy almost any brand name burner and have great results

 

[LarryJoe]

Another important thing not mentioned is buffer size. Before I got this TDK, I had an Acer 8X with and 8MB buffer and it was very hard to make a coaster. Most of my burns are audio and I would always play mp3's, surf the web and do photo editing while burning with the Acer. The bigger the buffer, the less likely it will under run.

The Plextor and the TDK only have 2MB buffers, but I guess you do not need a large buffer with burnproof technology.

LJ

 

[frustrated2]

Exactly

 

[Noriaki]

I agree with Larry Joe and Kwad Guy, except larry joe's comment about buffer size, it's rather unimportant with BURNproof.

I'd try for a TDK 12/10/32, made by plextor, less expensive and comes with nero what more could you ask for

uhmm personally i love my Yamaha 8x8 with a 4MB buffer and no BURNproof...I think burnproof is a little overrated, since your not exactly going to play quake while burning anyways, and even at 8x the Yamaha takes less than 10 minutes to burn a CD, I surf the web and use ICQ while burning. Burning uses to much system resource to play games anyways so I find Burn proof to be less than useful.

But the TDK does look like a nice drive, and if you can get it for $220 that's pretty good, I paid about $195 for my 8x8 Yamaha (it was $300 canadian, and the exchange rate is a little over 1.5CDN to 1US)

 

[BoberFett]

I've had very good luck with both Yamaha and Ricoh.

 

[techwanabe]

Okydoky, Sounds like we've done the switcheroony. I lived in Houston a couple of years, and moved up to central NY (but I grew up in Northern California - Davis and Sacramento) Now I'm stuck here in Siberia! You should know being from a neigboring city. When I was in Houston I worked for Gearhart Industries but they went belly up with the oil price drop in 1986.

Anyway... are the more expensive 12/10/32 CDRW drives the only ones with the "burn proof" technology? Would like to keep it under $200 if possible.

 

[LarryJoe]

Noriaki - I assumed buffer wasn't important in burnproof. Is that what you are saying?

LJ

 

[frustrated2]

Well the TDK is only $249 at Best Buy right now after rebate. If you buy $50 worth of cdr's/cdrw you can get a Best Buy charge card and get 6 months same as cash on it(have to spend over $300 for the 6 months) or I think you can get 90 days same as cash under $300. Hope this helps I would say you will want the fastest you can get your hands on right now IMHO

 

[Linh]

Nori,

not that you would, but you could play quake while burning. I play Q3 and UT all the time while burning. I have a scsi burner and a cheap ass 2GB scsi hard drive dedicated to nothing but burning.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

<< Similarly, Plextor drives use a lot of Sanyo components. Plextor
firmware is theirs, but I am not sure how much more of the basic
unit is proprietary. >>

No drive manufacturer makes all of its components, that would be like GM or Mercedes making every part for a car, ie. insane (although GM tries hard, about 60% of content is in-house, technically). Anyhow, back to Plextor ... one of the most important parts in any drive is the drive motor. And guess what the parent company of Plextor has been specializing in for decades? Case closed.

 

[billyjak]

I have the Yamaha 16x 10x 40x with 8 meg buffer, burns fast and have yet to make a coaster, only it dosen't have burnproof technology.
I don't think I need it with the 8 meg buffer.
I burned a 658 meg file in 4.65 minutes, so I can wait a couple of minutes before multitasking if I don't want to try to make a coaster.
TDK does have the burnproof technology. Suprised Yamaha din't incorporate this, they just wanted to be the first out the door at 16x I guess. I does say in the manual with the 8 meg buffer it almost eliminates coasters.

 

[LarryJoe]

&quot;Almost&quot; being the key word there. Like I said aboive, my old 8x 8MB buffer burner was solid. I could do just about anything, including watching a DVD during a burn. But it was not coaster-proof.

Last night I burned 700MB in ~6 minutes while playing SoF. That Yamaha is a sweet drive, but I think that we are approaching speed differences that are not noticiable and really depend on the burn and software. I don't know if the difference between a 12X burner and a 16X burner (30 seconds)is worth foregoing burnproof. That was my thinking anyway when I bought the TDK this weekend. Hell, the Yamaha was the same price and I already did the 8MB buffer thing.

LJ