CD/DVD Burners

[Daydreamer]

Okay, now that I am finally getting to the 21st century I think that I might like to add a burner to my machine. I just upgraded my machine with the help of glc through this forum. I have an ASUS P2B-F motherboard now running 512Mb ram, PIII-800Mhz with 100Mhz fsb and a new Seagate 250Gb, SATA hard drive controlled by a Rosewill 4 port PCI/SATA card.

I would use the cd/dvd burner primarily for copying digitals pictures. I think I was told that it didn't much matter if optical drives were SATA or EIDE/ATA. Can anyone please clarify?

I have looked on Newegg site but I don't have a clue as to what to look for. I read their information about burners etc. but it didn't really help me. The only thing I did see was that burners in the 12X to 16X speed wrote to a 700Mb CD or a 4.7Gb DVD in a range of 5 or 6 minutes, which seems reasonable to me. I didn't realize that these units were so inexpensive. I also read the info about LightScribe Technology, which also sounds good.

Can anyone suggest a drive or drives I should evaluate?

[Freakitchen]

IDE burners are still by far the most common, so it makes sense to go with one for your older machine.

This is the burner I'd recommend to you. Lite-on make quality opticals, and this burns at all the common speeds (the speed at which you burn depends on the media you choose), is Lightscribe capable, and comes with Nero burning software & Power DVD

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106015

Here is a similar model if you need/prefer a Beige front bezel

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106054

FK

[glc]

Look at the Lite-On retail box DVD burners - IDE would be fine in your case. Most "OEM" burners don't come with software.

LightScribe is nice, but it's only black/white and it's quite slow - it takes longer to burn the label than it takes to burn the whole CD/DVD. I prefer inkjet printable media and you can buy an inkjet printer that prints directly on the CD/DVD for under $100 - in full color - and can still be used as a standard printer.

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=172223

[Daydreamer]

I just got back from the Newegg site. I read reviews on an ASUS product N82E16827135098
which seemed to be very good, of course there were some negative reviews. GLC, I don't need the color labels. I'm not looking for anything fancy. Just a burner that works good. I suppose the reason I leaned toward ASUS is because I have been happy with their product in my machine. Seems that other people recognize ASUS as one of the leaders in the industry.

You mention that most "oem" burners don't come with software. This product says it comes with Nero software and LightScribe support?

More feedback please?

[glc]

If it comes with Nero, that's what you need - that's a retail boxed drive, not OEM. I can't complain about Asus burners, we usually recommend Lite-On because they are the industry leader in low cost optical drives and they seem to be as reliable as anyone else's. It wouldn't surprise me if that Asus had Lite-On guts in it, I know Sonys do.

[Freakitchen]

I noticed recently that 'the Firmware page' gives details of who actually manufactures the various optical drive brands.

It would seem that Pioneer are the OEM for ASUS burners, and I'd be happy to use a Pioneer drive.

http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?category=4&manufactor=6

FK

[Daydreamer]

Thanks for the info glc and freak. So you both think the ASUS is okay but Lite-On is the industry leader. Freak already gave me his choice, what about you glc?

I noticed while adding my new SATA drive that my old WD 8.4Gb hard drive and CD-ROM were sharing the same cable. And the cable was attached to the Primary IDE connector of the P2B-F. If I purchase the burner should I set the CD-ROM up on the Primary connector and the burner on the Secondary connector?

And what about disk media? I have seen a lot of good things written about Verbatim.

What would you recommend.

[Freakitchen]

When I set up a computer with two optical drives, I always put them on the secondary IDE channel - even if the primary is left as spare. Of course, there's nothing to stop you setting them up as you described, but the only time that will bring speed benefits is if you're doing a drive to drive direct copy, 'on the fly' - a process that I don't especially recommend.

On a purely practical basis, IDE cables are bulky things, and in terms of airflow, having only one in your case is better than having two.

Verbatim make top class media. Another brand that springs to mind is Taiyo Yuden. These are both premium brands though - I personally use 'Datawrite' media (not sure about availability in the US though).

FK

[Daydreamer]

I revisited Freak's choice and looked at the specs. System requirements for his choice is for a P4/1.3GHz or higher. I'm only a P3/800MHz.

[glc]

The system requirements are for using all the included software at full capability. You will be able to use any burner that comes with Nero 6 okay but you probably won't be able to burn DVD's at full 16x, the buffer underrun protection will be kicking in.

Leave the drives as is and add the burner to the secondary IDE all by itself.

I'm presently using TDK media for CD and Verbatim for DVD, no problems with either in a Lite-On burner.

[Daydreamer]

So, when I yank the old hard drive you want me to leave the ribbon cable attached to the Primary connection and the CD-ROM and connect the burner to the Secondary connector?

glc, I didn't see a response to my question about your preference between Light-On and the ASUS model. Is there another model you prefer?

[glc]

I would use separate channels for the drives if you ever anticipate wanting to copy CD's on the fly.

I personally prefer Lite-On but I did say that I have no complaints with an Asus. I can't complain about LG or NEC either.