Doomguy,
Its only loud I hear when its reading because its 40x
No, a review of the Sanyo 16/10/40 (*with* BURN-Proof, BTW) at CDRInfo noted the "low noise which both (Sanyo) drives produce when reading at 40x speed compared to the annoying noise, which (Yamaha) CRW2100E produces." Also, on this forum some people returned their Yamahas because they were so annoying.
EvilDonnyboy
that waz at 12x with 2/4mb buffer. now the yamaha does 16x with 8mb buffer. if it takes plextor burn-proofs lot to under-run at 12X with 4mb buffer, then a yamaha at 25% faster with 50% larger buffer would do better
Wrong. I'll say it again - the higher the speed, the more likely you are to coaster. And a larger buffer doesn't make the drive functionally equivalent to BURN-Proof. In fact, if an 8MB buffer is the functional equivalent of BURN-Proof, then why does Yamaha suggest NOT doing CD-to-CD copy at 16x from a drive on the same IDE channel? BURN-Proof has no problem doing this.
What's particularly appalling is that Yamaha advertises the drive as having "Waste-Proof Write Strategy." Guess what that is? You got it, an 8MB buffer. Which, as I've said repeatedly is NOT the functional equivalent of BURN-Proof. But it sure helps mislead people into thinking that the drive has something "just like" BURN-Proof.
Regardless, the Plextor PX-W1610A is coming fairly soon. So if you really want a 16x drive, I'd wait for the Plextor, since it'll probably cost about the same as the Yamaha.