I have the Toshiba CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combination Drive Kit, P/N SD-R1102. It's an 8x8x32x8 - 8x for write, re-write, and DVD. 32x for CD-ROM read.
I have had it about six months, and am very pleased with it. You can get it under $200. I have little experience with other burners or DVD drives, so can't intelligently compare, but this one does exactly what it's supposed to do, so I think it's great.
DVD plays very well, though I don't usually use it for that. Digital audio extraction using the registered version of MusicMatch Jukebox is about 7.5x on my modest system (PII 400MHz, 128MB RAM). My Memorex CD-242E (24x) CD-ROM would extract digital audio at only about 4x, so this is a big difference for ripping .MP3's. Burning is great. I've burned several mix audio CD's that I use in my car with no problems, and burn data CD's often (old downloads, service packs, etc.). I use CD-RW to backup critical data areas of my system.
Until DVD-R drives become truly affordable, I think this is a great alternative. And, keeping my old CD-ROM drive in the system makes copying CD's very easy. I found that one of my most frequently-used CD-ROM based programs was starting to behave badly (the disc would skip and I noticed it was scratched pretty bad). I was unable to make a copy from the Memorex to the Toshiba, but I WAS able to make a copy from the Toshiba to the Toshiba, using the hard drive to temporarily hold the data. So, the Toshiba is better at reading damaged CD's, too. The copy works great in either drive, so my old program is saved.
If you dig music, the registered version of MusicMatch Jukebox is awesome. The unregistered version is pretty cool, too, but limits your speed on DAE and burn. It's good to figure out if you want to buy it or not, though. I also highly recommend upgrading to Rosio EZ-CD Creator Deluxe. It's a little pricey (around $75-80 after rebate, I think), but worth it. Using it, I was able to take my old wedding video and burn a 'VCD' (Video CD). It's only 320x240, so there are some 'jaggies' on the image, but it's still much cooler to have home movies in CD format instead of VHS. I had to use CDRW media for it to work in my DVD player (limitation of the DVD player, not the Toshiba). I've seen competing programs (like 'Click-n-Burn'), that might be cool, too. I'm sure others on these forums would be able to comment on those, if you're interested.
Again, until DVD-R drives come WAY DOWN in price, this is a really cool alternative.
Enjoy!
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