Cdrw & Cdrom??

[bosco]

My question: If you were building a new system or upgrading. Would you put a CDRW & a CDROM in it? Or just a CDRW. Don't say DVD, I don't want one. I've got one under the TV.
Example: Someone wants a CDRW. Would you pull out the CDROM and put a CDRW in its place? or add the CDRW and keep both in the system?

[Cricket]

Hi bosco,

I'd go with both a CD-ROM and a CD-RW drive...although the PC I'm using now only has a CD-RW. This is my web browsing PC and I use the CD-RW to burn downloaded driver or program files so I can transfer them to my other machines.

Gee, I guess it really would depend on how you plan to use the computer.

Cricket

[Jason Padgett]

Well, if they already had the CDROM in there...I would leave it and add the CDRW. Why toss a completely good component.

If I was building a completely new system I would still have both. CDROMs are really cheap these days and typically CDROMs are faster than the CDRW at reading CDs. Plus, I believe there would be an added benefit of spreading the load of wear and tear across two drives. CDRWs can be fairly expensive (compared to CDROMs) and I like to use mine just to burn CDs.

[Michael]

I agree in part that using a seperate cdrom with a cdrw saves on the wear and tear of the more expensive component (the cdrw). However, many cdr's have superior read capabilities over most cdroms. When it comes to DAE (digital audio extraction) CDR's and some DVD's seem to perform better overall than cdroms, although the highest rated unit for DAE is still a cdrom (the Kenwood 72x and 62x, but these were problematic in other areas and I believe no longer produced).

So, for burning on the fly the rule of thumb is that you need a cdrom that will extract data at roughly twice that of your burner (or deal with the burn proof kicking on and off which substantially increases burn times). My Lite On 16x cdr will do DAE at around 27x's and my LG 16x cdr at about 32x, while my Lite On 163 DVD gets upwards of 37x.

If on the fly copying is of no use to you then keep your existing cdrom for playback, games, etc, as it's DAE capabilities are moot and it's usually cheaper to replace a cdrom rather than a burner. If it can keep up with your cdrw for copying then you've got the best of both worlds.


http://www.cdspeed2000.com/go.php3?link=daeresults.php3