Using a combo DVD Burner drive as main CD drive

[ath50]

Another carry over thread from the peripherals forum because there aren't many visits there, so just disregard that thread...


Just curious what the people think about combo drives. Is it better to use a dedicated DVD/CD drive to read, and then have the combo drive just for burning?

Is performance less with a combo drive? and I heard using the combo drive a lot for reading CDs can damage the laser faster?

In my particular case I am thinking of getting this combo drive. But I also have an old Toshiba 40x/12x DVD/CD drive which I could throw in just for reading CDs. Then again I'd have to paint it black, and since its 4 years old, can it still read all of the newest forms of DVD media? I found a review of the Toshiba if you are wondering which one it is, but the review is quite old: review

 

[imported_Rusty]

Personally I dislike combo drives. I would rather have a dedicated DVD-ROM ($30) and a dedicated DVD±RW ($80). This way I do not waste time copying files to the harddrive just to burn them on another disc.

As far as performance from a combo drive I do not know. What I know is all drives have some life expectancy and I would rather replace -ROM drives at $30 a piece than a good burner at $80-$100.

I have the NEC ND-2500A paired with an ASUS DVD-E616P1, both on an 80 conductor cable with no problems.

 

[Zepper]

I prefer having a burner and a player on the basis that there is less wear and tear on the mechanical parts of the more expensive drive. And there is always the ability to do direct dubbing if you properly connect the drives on separate IDE channels.
.bh.

 

[WobbleWobble]

I like combo drives. By the time you wear out your drive it'll be time to replace it with a much faster drive anyways. We're looking at years, not months.

I tend to dislike Disc-to-Disc copies because sometimes part of the CD is unreadable and that fudges up the whole process

 

[ath50]

Alright...and do you think my 4 year old Toshiba 40x/12x drive is comparable to the dedicated DVD/CD readers of today? In terms of performance, would a newer drive be 25-50%+ better than the old one?

 

[Davegod]

nope CD is still about 40x (highest is generally 52x for cd reads, which apparently wouldnt be actually 30% faster, even if it actually did run at max speed all the time, than 40x). 12x still fastest dvd read AFAIK.

Generally unless you really eat drives, chances are any drive crapping out from wear and tear would be replaced with either something better (more performance, or in your case it'd be a dvd-rw) or something similar costing like $15. Most people will replace any drive for a better one before theirs dies from wear. I wouldnt bother having a second "reader" drive unless I happened to have one spare anyway, or really like to burn on the fly.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Fastest DVD readers are 16x, with CDs at 52x. Given the actual transfer rates, I wouldn't be surprised if those numbers are comparable. Anyway, the laws of physics take over after those speeds.

I've been with a lone optical drive for probably three years now. And that's without a floppy drive. My original optical drive was a Ricoh DVD/CDRW combo unit that I replaced earlier this year with a dual-format DVD±RW (LiteOn). The Ricoh saw extensive use in its first 6 months as I ripped (to MP3) and re-recorded every music CD I have (probably 200+ by now). Now, I really only burn ISOs for various operating system or when I need to transfer files to non-Internet machines.

With the best optical drives now under $100 new, I'd only get a second optical drive if I did a ton of disc-to-disc duplication ... and that's something I never did in the first place.

-SUO

 

[drag]

Personally I have 2 disks, but only because I had a cd burner for a long time, and needed to play DVD's on my computer for a odd reason.

Thinking back I should of bought a DVD burner instead. Oh, well.


But I didn't do that for any particular reason, I see no reason why not to have a dedicated single CDROM drive capable of reading a writing multiple formats, including DVD's.

Anything beyond that is just personal choice.

Have at it.

 

[ath50]

One other question, about DVD Burner software.

I read NERO is better than the Roxio software for the NEC 2500A drive. But on newegg you can get the Roxio software with it for only $8 more. Considering I'm nowhere near an ethusiast, would Roxio be fine for me?

I doubt I would burn many DVDs at all, moreso burning data CDs, and maybe the occasional audio CD.

 

[Maezr]

all software you need can be found for free, really.

I just use my dvd burner driver for everything.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

bad economics in this thread.

All drives have a rated lifespan, and every time you use them, you'll shorten this life. Sure, you can *possibly* buy newer and cheaper hardware, but we should NOT forget that newer is not necessarily better. We've seen this many times before in what home electronics are concerned... and it may well be the case here as well. I'll give you an example: older DVD drives were not RPC enhanced... and some were really better rippers overall.

I cannot understand this fascination with speed. First of all, a 52x CD-ROM drive is noisy as hell... and most of the times, it's a worse ripper than a slower drive. Burning? I challenge all those who burn at 24x (or 8x, in the case of DVD-Rs) to compare their discs with discs recorded at the slowest possible speed (1x or 2x)... Audiophile magazines recommend, again and again, the use of low recording speeds, to reduce distorsion, jitter, errors etc.

Last but not least, there's conventional wisdom. The saying about putting all the eggs in the same basket? You have a hybrid drive that craps on you, you're SOL if that's the only optical drive in your machine.

BTW, Nero is the absolute best over Roxio, hands down. Ease of use, friendly interface, refusal to use clunky proprietary formats (the DirectCD....), control over what you're doing in your CD/DVD project...