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What's the average lifespan for an optical(CD, DVD) drive?

S

Spoooon

Lifer
Just curious about how long these things are supposed to last. I have an old double speed that's still kicking after 5-6 years of abuse. I have a triple speed that died after about 6 months. I have a 32X that kicked the bucket after about a year. My 48X is still good after 6 months and I just got a 12X dvd drive. Any ideas about lifespan?
 
That's a good question, I just thought it depended on how well the drive is made and how lucky you are 🙂

Kinda like with a car
 
I've got a 2x drive that's almost 8 years old and still works (though it's been in storage for a few years, so we're not talking constant use).
 

I have my third.. err, nope, actually fourth HP CD-Writer going 😉

My first (2x) one broke after few months and I got new one from warranty, that also broke about month after the warranty expired, grrr 🙂 Then I got my third (4x) drive, that lasted pretty long, but finally broke (of course after warranty had expired). This 8x I currently have is thus my fourth, and my last may I say, Hewlett Packard CD-Writer.

Average lifespan for HP drives seems to be about a year, for me that is. With these four drives I've burned maybe 400 cd's, so I don't even use 'em much, and I treat them with extreme care.

This of course is just my bad luck, HP Writers should be good quality. But I'm going to switch for another brand.
 
Like the guys have said . . . it is a variable. One thing that most users fail to do, however, is clean the laser lens about every couple of years. If you are unfortunate enough to have tobacco smoke in your area, then it will need it more frequently.
 
I heard that with Kenwood's drives, you either get lucky and end up with a well made drive that's super fast, or you get screwed because the drive craps out on you.

I have 2 HP CD Writers. My first one is a 2/2/6, about 3 years old I think, and it's still running to this day (I've burnt over 200+ CDs with it).

However, I'd go with a TDK or Plextor if I were to buy a burner . . .
 
Well besides the Kenwood drives which are damn fast but all seem to invariably crap out quickly it varies considerably in my experience.

I still have an older 2X, 4X, and 8X cd-rom which all work perfectly, and a 52X that's worked fine since I bought it a year or so ago. I've also had 2 44X drives, and a 48X drive that died within 3 to 9 months.

I also still have an older 2x2x16 Memorex CDRW that still works great.
 
What would we use to clean the laser lens? I see a couple of generic lens cleaners, but I'm wary of these typse of things. A $hit cleaner could kill a perfectly good drive. Killed a good VCR with a $hit head cleaner.

So is there a brand we can stick to? No way in hell i'm gonna use sum generic $hit to clean my drives.
 
I'm still using my 4yr old pioneer 10X, and it can read low-quality CDs better than any faster CD-ROMs.
I guess for CD-ROMs, the slower the better!
I wouldn't trade mine for anything faster (^;^)
 
My guess is that the lower speed optical drives will last longer than the newer, faster ones simply because the lower speeds don't produce nearly the same amount of vibration and heat that the faster ones do. However, the newer drives spin at the same rate as opposed to altering the speed of the CD based on the position of the lens as older drives do, which I would think favors the newer technology because there's not as complicated a mechanism. I could be completely off here though. 😀

I've been using my Plextor 40x for about a year or so and have not kept an optical drive for longer than 2 years at the most. Never had one fail on me (frantically searching for wood to knock on in this plastic and metal cubicle world).
 
I think I remember reading somewhere not to use a lense cleaner on a CD-RW because it will ruin the laser. I may be wrong though,
 
CD-RW drives don't last mostly because of dust. The lense gets coated with dust and can't produce a high enough intensity beam to burn a CD properly. A good cleaning (NOT with a cleaning disc) can sometimes fix them.
 
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