5 Years ago when you purchased a CDRW you also purchased a large
group of new friends. The thought that you could take 15 different Cds and steal a track
from each one making a "greatest hits" made it the greatest thing since
Hamburger Helper. It's hard to find a computer that doesn't have a CDRW drive in it now.
For those of you who're still in the darkage with a 2x or 4x CDRW Drive or no CDRW at
all... Listen up!
The best thing you can do when upgrading your computer no matter what
the component: Never research the future. You'll never upgrade. There's ALWAYS going to be
something better coming out. You'll never find the end-all of computer products. Look at
what you need and which product fits it the best.
So what do you look for? What's good...what's bad? Well, first off...
Stay away from places like Best Buy, CompUSA ,etc. Unless they have some "hot
deal" (happens every so often) they usually have overpriced lower quality drives.
Personally I don't know why people still shop in brick in mortar for stuff like that.
You're wasting a lot of money.
There's many things to look out before finding the drive that's right for you. First thing
and most obvious is the speed. When you see a CDRW Drive labeled "12x10x32" this
refers to a a drive that has a recording speed of 12x. What does this translate to you
ask? Well if you had a 60 minute CD a 1x "burner" would take 60 minutes to copy
the CD. Do the math. The Second # is the Re-Writing Speed. Re-Writing is the speed at
which the drive will record over information already on the disk. The bad part of this
however is you cant do it with music Cds and can only do it on CDRW Disks. The last
speed is the "reading speed." Basically it also acts as a 32X CDROM. There is
more to look at then speed however. "BurnProof"is a new technology developed by Sanyo. If you've ever had a "buffer underrun
error" you know what I'm talking about. BurnProof eliminates that. Essentially your
disk is toast and drives with burnproof are less likely to spit out "coasters".
The other thing to look at that may be important to you is CloneCD. CloneCD is a software
program that makes perfect replications of a CD. Not all drives are CloneCD compatible. If
you're just looking to make music cds you don't have to worry about this. However, if
you're looking to make some nice illegal copies of your playstation games and software
you'll want this.
Below I've picked out 5 drives that I happen to like and frequently
recommend to my customers.
- Plextor 16x10x40 CDRW
If you see the name "Plextor" you're looking at the king of CDRW Drives. This
particular drive is the newest of the Plextor line. Featuring a 16x Recording speed a 70
minute music CD would be copied in approximately 5 or 6 minutes. This obviously depends on
your system power. If you have anything less than a 700MHz system it's probably not going
to achieve that speed. A system in the GHz range will do it more handedly. Visit Plextor's Website for more info. Street Price: $225
- Lite-On 12x10x32 CDRW
Lite-On is a more generic CDRW Vendor. However it is a 12x10x32 drive that does feature
BurnProof. The biggest advantage to this however is the price. If you don't have
"plextor tastes" then the Lite-On may fit your needs. Street Price $135
- TDK 12x10x32 CDRW
From what I've seen from benchmarks and the reviews I've read the TDK Drive actually uses
the same internals as the Plextor Drive does (Plextor also makes a 12x10x32 drive)
However, the TDK drive actually features a faster DAE Speed (Digital Audio Extraction) So
if you've got 500 CDs that you want to put on your system....This is probably what you
want to look into. Downside to this drive is it doesnt feature an awesome price with the
awesome performance. Street Price $215
- Yamaha 8x8x24 SCSI 3 CDRW
One thing you'll learn from using any of the 3 CDRW Drives above is that you can't really
use your system while a disk is burning. The connection is IDE. It's the same connection
your CD-ROM and Hard Drive use. SCSI uses a lot less power from your system. So, you could
be fragging in Quake 3 while burning a VCD Copy of Gladiator. The only problem with
SCSI is Cost. The Drive itself isn't bad but you'll have to buy an adapter card as well.
Street Price: Drive = $155 SCSI 3 Adapter = $80
- Samsung 8x8x24 CDRW
You're not going to find all of the features of the other drives with this one. But
honestly if you're only needing to make an occasional music CD and backup some information
on your hard drive this drive might work for you. You're likely to get an occasional
"Coaster." Street Price: $115
I polled 50 random people on a message board I frequent.
Most of the people are "computer geeks" so results may vary from the general
population.
Question: What is the main function of your CDRW Drive?
Burning Music CDs : 24 People
Burning Software or Playstation Games or VCDs: 10 People
Backing up files on hard drive (Ex. E-mail, text files, etc): 12 People
I Don't have a CDRW: 4 People
Not surprising most people use their CDRW for the purpose of making their own music CDs.
Only 12 of the 50 people polled use it to backup vital information
Personally, I use mine (12x10x32 Plextor Ultra-SCSI2) for burning music CDs and backing up
information I can't afford to lose.
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