SCSI and IDE CD writers

[Morjo]

What is so different about the 2 interfaces?

 

[Morjo]

bump

 

[Twilling]

One plugs into the same slot as your hardrives, and the other requires a SCSI card that plugs into the motherboard then cdrw into you scsi. The scsi setup is far superior to the IDE interface because you can achieve reliable burns, however there has been dramatic improvements with the IDE interface.
The scsi interface uses little or no cpu utilization where as IDE tend to use alot. With todays fast processors and and pc133 interfaces, IDE is has come a long way in performance and reliabilty making the IDE a better buy, where as you pay a premium for a scsi interface.

 

[shathal]

SCSI vs. IDE CD-burner simple comparison.

IDE:
* Cheaper.
* Takes up an IDE-slot, which could otherwise go for a HDD.
* As of late, the IDE-burners are nearly as reliable as SCSI.
* requires "a lot" of CPU activity (in comparison with SCSI).

SCSI:
* More expensive.
* Requires SCSI-controller (either on-board or as a seperate PCI-card).
* Very reliable
* Doesn't hog the CPU anywhere near as much as IDE-reading/writing does.
* Make sure you've got the right connector (most SCSI-CD ROMs tend to use 50 pins).
* &quot;Faster&quot; <depends on which SCSI-protocol it can do>

For &quot;joe average&quot; nowadays IDE-CD burners are a satisfactory solution - why pay for SCSI if all &quot;it takes&quot; is a free IDE-slot. It's not as if THAT many people have 2+ HDD's. It's really that. Unless you specifically WANT SCSI, I would say you should be fine with an IDE-burner. They've become quite a lot better to earlier, when IDE-burners were something to truly stay away from.

Anyway - hope this helps (although this might repeat some of Twilling's comments) 😀.