cd-r/w buying advice

[xtant]

Between HP, Iomega, Memorex, and Smart & Friendly, which brand would you buy? I'm going to take advantage of my value america $$$ and I don't know too much about cdr drives. any advice?

[Bleeding Edge]

If you're not set in your choice of manufactures, get either the Plextor drives or the ones from Yamaha.

Purchase SCSI over IDE.

[xtant]

I'm trying to stay within those manufacturers because of the $100 off I'll get from VA. Otherwise, I wouldn't be getting one right now. I don't see myself doing a lot of disk burning, so I'm going to stay w/ my ide for now.

[Bleeding Edge]

See if the particular recorders are listed at the User Reveiws section here at Sysopt. http://www.sysopt.com/userreviews/products/cdrecord.html

Compare the reviews of the same models at a different site. Try http://www.reviewbooth.com/pr_review_search2.htm

[Brangwen]

Hi.

I have a Memorex 4224 CD-RW. It came with an NTI software package and works fairly well. You may want to inquire about different softwares, which may be as important as the device you decide upon. I have burned audio (music) and program CD-Rs. I have had difficulties but Memorex has decent tech support. There are some tricks to learn that the first time buyer will likely be unaware of, such as extracting audio data and converting to wav files then burning the wav files on to the CD-Rs. And the process takes about every bit of system resource one has with an average machine. I have a 333 mhz mmx celeron, 128 meg sdram, 13 GB HD, and EVERYTHING possible must be disabled during burn process to make it happen. And, yes, mine is IDE.

Good luck. /forum/smile.gif

Brangwen

[golfs]

can you say sony ?? www.fadden.com (http://www.fadden.com)

[ANTONIO E GUERRA]

I just found out that most of the cd-r and cd-rw are manufactured by 4 or 5 companies. For example, some Memorex and Hp are really manufactured by Phillips. So you might be arguing about the same product under different name brand. If you have a chance, get the Adactec Easy Creator 4.0 it is really amazing.

[LittleKing]

My friend has a HP 8200i cd-rw and he really likes it. Once I can sell my cd-rw, I will probably buy an hp. Maybe there new 9100i, 8x4x32. SWEET.

As for IDE and SCSI. The scsi would probably burn more reliable but would definately cost more. and for me the price difference, and hassle, isn't worth the performance gain. But I'm sure you'll like whatever you get.

LK

BTW my is IDE and I have very little problems with it (every once in a while I get a memory underrun). Most newer IDE burners don't get a memory underrun, or as far as I know.

[This message has been edited by LittleKing (edited 11-05-1999).]

[xtant]

Thanks for the advice. I ended up getting a smart and friendly, 'cause it was cheap and got good user ratings.
Thanks again