Please recommend drive

[stymie222]

I just replaced my third Lite-On DVD/Combo and burner.
I know that a lot of you recommend Lite-On, but I would like to hear of other, better drives that you like and have had better luck with.
Price would be no problem.
I burn Audio and a lot of DVD's

Thanks

[shadowpr]

I have an Asus Drive that I like. It's not a burner, but it works perfect for me.

Just out of curiostiy, what was wrong with the drives you replaced?

[XenaWP]

I have a NEC I've been using for a few years. I don't know if the Sony/NEC drives are as good ....

[stymie222]

One drive gave constant errors while installing programs such as Windows XP-It was sent back and supposedly repaired

The other two stopped burning- Giving error-"burning did not complete sucessfully"

Three defective drives are enough to stop me from buying another Lite-On.

[shadowpr]

Wow. Just ounds like a string of bad luck. I want to say that it is something else causing those problems.

Anyways, like I said, I have also used an Asus drive and not had problems with it.

[phigdon]

i have a sony drive I got a walmart a couple of years ago and its still going strong. I am looking to put in a SATA DVD burner soon though and the sony at the egg is only a couple bucks more expensive than the LiteOn that is recommended here.

[stymie222]

As mentioned above, what would cause a premature DVD/combo or burner failure ?

[Panama Red]

I've had similar failure rates with LiteOn DVD burners. Makes no difference if they were ide or sata. It almost seems like they had a limited number of DVD burns available and then they go wacky. I've managed to have mine replaced under warranty - twice on two different machines. Regardless, I've stuck with the LiteOn brand with all my builds. None of my customers have had any failures so I have to believe it's just the large number of DVD's I've been burning.

[shadowpr]

I've burned probably close to about 150 to 200 on mine, and it's still going strong.

[Powertrip]

I have had good luck with Pioneer DVR 111's and 112's. Finally burned mine out after doing 500 music CD's for a wedding. Still reads and plays fine, even rips music CD's that will not play in my card and my other drives won't rip. Just will not burn audio any more.

Only complaints about pioneer are slow spin up times and they open/close with a bang that may wake someone up late at night.

[Devastator]

If you are looking for higher quality then you could pay more for a Plextor.. but whether the increase in price is worth the quality and performance increase I wouldn't be too sure.

[freakitchen]

Plextor recently bowed out of the market, presumably not enough demand for their top-quality drives. With Lite-Ons and other brands down to under $40 / £20, they've become almost disposable. Can still get them from a few retailers, but I'm under the impression that once they've gone, that's it.

For the last few years, I've only bought NEC drives. Two of mine must have burned over 300 DVDs between them and are going strong, one I bought for someone else managed about 3 before it bit the dust! I'd still buy another, even though they're now Sony/NEC. I always used to buy Sony DVD-ROMs, what put me off their burners were the stories of horrible software.

[kissfan]

I will stand to be corrected, are not Sony / NEC drives made by Optiarc.

I have a Sony in my older PC and an NEC in my newer, both have successfully burned hundreds of disks.

I always used to like Lite-On, but found them to be increasingly noisy after a few burns.

Kissfan

[freakitchen]

As far as I'm aware, kissfan, Optiarc is the name of the company that Sony/NEC set up themselves to manufacture the drives, rather than a completely separate company 'using' the Sony/NEC name. Obviously, there's a certain amount of guesswork involved, but I'm happy to still use their drives on that basis.