External dvd burners

[Guille_Expat]

Can anyone recommend a good external dvd burner.

I'm now desktop free, I have 17" notebook for home & smaller one for travel.

But I've heard they tend to get noisey??

[Sterling_Aug]

We have a Sony 16X dual layer USB external burner at work.

It is nice to unplug it and move it into a desk drawer when not being used.

[Guille_Expat]

Have you had any issues with it?

Thanks for the tip! :t

[millwork]

Hello Guille_Expat,

Don't have a specific recommendation, but here's a couple of "points to ponder."

Noise could be more noticable with one enclosure than with another. As an example, I have a Buslink DVD burner that uses a LiteOn drive. I happen to have the same LiteOn model drive that's internal to another computer and it sounds louder. So, I suspect the Buslink's enclosure supresses the mechanical noise.

Consider the interface. That same drive has both FireWire and USB. Although some disagree, my experience has been that IEEEE 1394 (FireWire) is overall faster than USB 2.0. I have several USB devices and and seems like the drive burns faster with 1394.

You may want to select an internal drive and purchase an enclosure. That way you'll have more options available by selecting the exact drive you like. Reviews about external drives are few but reviews about internal drives are voluminous. There's lots of enclosures out there with both FireWire and USB.

John B. :t

[Sterling_Aug]

It works great but it should for the price!!!

[Guille_Expat]

Thanks for the info millwork! I've read about that as well, this way I could find a good enclosure. But from what I read, they can be noisey.... But it looks like, I'm not going to get away from an external burner that isn't noisey.

But at least I can go with a burner thats rated well! If I went that way.

Hey Sterling, how's the noise factor with the Sony burner?

But then again, if I buy a good decent burner and then shop for a good enclosure. The price just may be close to an external burner price? Hmmmm

Thanks :t

[G]

Get a Belkin enclosure (comes with a no quibble lifetime guarantee) and an NEC 3520A DVD-rewriter.


Belkin Enclosure:
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=&Product_Id=125643

[Guille_Expat]

Hey G,

Thanks for the tip on the Belkin enclosure. I'm going to check it out and the burner and do my homework.

I was reading to shop carefully on enclosures, the least expensive models can more of a tad noisey than they should be. Plus the good ones have good fans.

So we'll see!

Thanks all! :t

[Guille_Expat]

Oh btw,

If I buy an OEM bareburner, my winxp should find it witih any hitches? And I have Sonic dvd & Roxio burning software, which should be enough?

Thx

[G]

WinXP will find it no problems.

There may be better enclosures out there but they only give 3 years guarantees and tend to be more expensive too. Belkin give you a lifetime on all their kit.

The fan can go noisy in time but if that happens just send it back. The great thing about Belkin and Crucial is that they do not mess the customer about.

I have one Belkin for a Pioneer DVD 109D rewriter and one for a HDD. Note for HDDs the maximum is 127GB so this will be a 120GB at best.

[Guille_Expat]

Thanks "G"

[G]

Any time :t