SCSI DVD & Hypermicro - Experiences?

[Jeff H]

Guys,

I'm getting ready to swap out my Teac CD-532S SCSI CD-ROM (will go in second machine) for a SCSI DVD drive. Compared to IDE drives, SCSI DVD is a relative rarity. It appears that the best selection of drives, as well as best vendor, is Hypermicro. They sell two Pioneer slot load drives (DVD-304S and DVD-305S), and a Toshiba SD-M1401. The Pioneers have 512k cache, and appear to differ only in access time. The Toshiba has 128k cache, and access times similar to the slower of the Pioneer units.

First off, what kind of experience have you had ordering from Hypermicro? Their resellerratings.com rating is nearly through the roof, at 6.7 out of 7.0. Second, of the three above-mentioned drives, which would you choose? Respectively the drives sell for $130, $150, and $170. I'm not adverse to spending the $170 on the Toshiba if it's considered heads and tails above the two Pioneer drives.

Lastly, AFAYK are there any DAE issues w/ these drives? I do a fair amount of CD ripping and DAE capability is an important attribute.

TIA,

Jeff

 

[seewhy]

Good choice!! Hypermicro is the best SCSI vendor you can have on the web, they got almost everything you need for SCSI stuff. Their price is pretty good too, unless some other place got like really special sale, Hypermicro is the way to go.

About the drive, I think the DVD-305S is pretty good, the Toshiba Drive is good too depending on what you use it for. There is a pretty good review here, may be you want to check it out!! (Look for DVD-305S review)

DVD-305S Review

 

[goldboyd]

hyper micro is a great place to order from, i've ordered a few hd's and they've been great. I'd definately recommend the pioneer drives, i've used a few and never had an issue. on the other hand i've had problems with toshiba dvd drives, both computer and set top, reading normal cds

 

[jimmygates]

I have the Pioneer 304S. It's a great drive with good DAE ripping speed. Like you said, SCSI DVD are a rarity and not many vendors carried SCSI DVD's. I feel SCSI DVD (IMHO) provides not that much performance boost over IDE DVD. I got this drive since most of my other stuff is already SCSI and for braggin rights..



-Jimbo

 

[jimmygates]

Bah...twitchy finger.



-jimbo

 

[Jeff H]

Guys, thanks for the replies. And, thanks for confiming Hypermicro as a good vendor. Now all I need to do is make a decision re which drive. I'm waiting on an email from them re their recommendation.

 

[Smbu]

Yeah, Hypermicro is a good company. I ordered my Plextor 40x MAX scsi cdrom drive from them. I had no problems with them and they even answered all of my questions about the drive that I sent them, before I purchased it.