New DVD Drive

[astra]

I would like to buy a new DVD drive.
Quality is no.1.

I thought about PX-760A/PX-760SA

IDE vs. SATA?

Should I go for IDE or SATA? Is this plextor drive any good? Are there known issues with it?

or maybe I should go for 3 times cheaper drive such as http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/125208 ?

My system is not very up-to-date. AMD Venice 3500, 2G=2x1G Crucial RAM, Gigabyte Nforce3 motherboard, 1 SATA-1 200G WD and 1 IDE 120G WD.

Thank you in advance.
A.

 

[Tmagic650]

Since you have a SATA hard drive, go with a SATA DVD drive... I don't like Plextor but it your call. If you want to spend lots of cash, it's your money

 

[astra]

What other options would you suggest?

What about
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/125285
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/122955

 

[Tmagic650]

I really like Lite-On

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Lite-On, Sony, NEC, Pioneer, Plextor and LG produce some of the best burners out there today. As far as reliable burning goes, I have a Sony DVD burner and it's never failed me. Lite-On produces drives for Sony now so they can concentrate on Blu-Ray drives, so you might want to keep that in mind when considering those two brands, since most of the Sony models are simply repackaged Lite-Ons. Also, some NEC models are basically relabelled versions of some Pioneer drives and even share the same servos and controllers, besides being cheaper. You have a wealth of choices, so make sure you get any one of the aforementioned drives and you'll be fine. Oh, and forget about the "Max. Burn Speed = 18X/20X" crap since media that burns at that speed is difficult to find, not to mention expensive. The usual max burn speed you'll find is 16X. So don't let "higher" burn speeds lure you into buying an expensive drive that's not worth the money.

 

[Tmagic650]

I agree Rage_3K_Moiz,
I had 2 Plextor drives fail within 2 years. My NEC and Lite-On drives are approaching 3 years old. Sony used to be king in electronics, but they have suffered in loss of quality and reliability for the last several years.

I use RiData DVD blanks that are rated at 8X. These blanks cost me 23 cents a piece in lots of 100. My NEC burns them at 6 or 7X.

 

[astra]

I was never fan of the high speeds. I have already decided to use only x16
I think I will go for LiteOn or Pioneer.

I use only Verbatium DVD/CDs

P.S. Any more feedback about SATA vs IDE?

 

[captaincranky]

Well.....

That could be as simple a question as how many SATA connections you have VS how many IDE busses. The mechanics of actually reading and writing a disc are the bottleneck, not so much the interface. So, a SATA DVD drive isn't going to produce DVDs that much faster. SATA burners will probably soon become more commonplace. I prefer to put DVD drives on IDE, and have only HDDs on the SATA ports, but in truth, that's probably just silly superstition.

 

[SNGX1275]

I've had the opposite expierence of Tmagic650. I've had 3 Lite-Ons (one was a 'Sony') crap out on me. 2 of the 3 failed in dramatic fashion with a loud POP. Interestingly enough after sitting out of the system for months 1 worked again like normal, and one would work occationally (one dead completely).

I have the Plextor 760A and it is an awesome burner, never had any problems with it and its near silent.

 

[Tmagic650]

I must admit my Plextor experiences were a few years ago, when a DVD burner cost over $200. It's funny how a bad experience stays with us much longer than a good experience. I still stick with combo burners under $50...

Motherboards that have 4 or more SATA connectors, and only 1 IDE channel connector are becoming more common. If you have an IDE CD/DVD burner and a DVD ROM, the single IDE Channel is full. Why not go with SATA CD/DVD burners and CD/DVD ROMs? I'm not concerned with data transfer speeds... IDE, SATA not much difference

 

[halo71]

I recently bought a Sony DVD/CD drive to replace a POS....don't even know what brand it was! I have always had good luck with Sony and Plextor drives.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

As Tmagic650 stated, most new mobos come with only one or two IDE connectors. You can use the IDE connector for a DVD burner and a DVD ROM but you have to make sure the DVD burner is the master drive, 'cause otherwise it usually defaults to PIO mode as slave and that reduces the burn and read speeds to a crawl. Alternatively, you can also use SATA drives. The only upside to using SATA compared to IDE is that SATA allows for hot-swapping i.e. you can swap in and out drives while the PC is on. Speed-wise, there is no difference, since DVD burners/ROMs' burning/reading speeds usually depend on their internal mechanical parts rather than the buses they are on (unless you have a DVD drive that is set to Secondary slave on IDE, in which case it will perform horribly).

 

[astra]

Atm I have plextor 712A, it is 3 years old and I have got problems with it.
I am not sure 100% wether it is a problem with the drive or something more sinister. I want DL writer anyway, sI would like to buy a new drive anyway.
I think I have got a few pics of the problem I get with the drive currently.

Each time I burn a DVD I always check Verify fater the burn in Nero, I use 6.6.15 version or something like that and I check the quality of the burned disk via Plextor Tools.
About 7 months ago I started to get errors when Nero was verifying a newly burned disk. It would fail 3 out of 5 disks. Someone told me to reinstall drivers for MB controllers. I have done it. Nero doesn't show any errors anymore but the problem is still there. Plextor tools detects it and it is visible to an eye. It looks like that sometime during the burn process 50-70% it doesn't burn the disk. I will attach a couple of pics.
sometimes it burns perfectly accordingly to plextor tools but sometimes I get this empty line anyway. Nero doesn't detect it as a problem anymore, it only slows down during verification, but plextor tools detect the problem and I can see it.

 

[astra]

I have 2 IDEs controllers and 4 SATA connections.

1 HD - SATA - system drive.
1 HD - PATA - is connected to IDE 1 as a master - data.
1 DVD drive - plextor - PATA - connected as master to IDE 2.

 

[captaincranky]

Oh My....

Speed-wise, there is no difference, since DVD burners/ROMs' burning/reading speeds usually depend on their internal mechanical parts rather than the buses they are on (unless you have a DVD drive that is set to Secondary slave on IDE, in which case it will perform horribly).

I have 2 Pioneer DVD burners (111 & 112) in an Intel board, set as per most Intel boards to cable select. However, the BIOS still reads them as master and slave. There is very little difference in performance of the 2 drives. However, in a MSI board I have a Pioneer 111(master) & Liteon DVD Rom as slave. The Liteon's performance is lousy. I'm only reporting, not trying to explain this.

To get back on topic, DVD burners are cheap nowadays. It doesn't really pay not to have a spare. As to which one to buy, I always swear I have problems with TSST. Everyone one else seems to think they're the cat's meow. I shove Pioneers in, they work fine. others think they're unmitigated garbage. The moral here is dive in, anything can happen to any brand drive, there is a certain component of luck involved. Three years out of any one of them is definitely your money's worth.

Although I would add, that in this market, the Plextors are probably way overpriced.

 

[iss]

I am with SNGX1275, I have two Plextor 760A burners and they are the best burners I have ever owned.

 

[Tmagic650]

Plextor drives are really overpriced... I have had a couple of Lite-On drives that are still burning after 3 years of use. I use NEC combo's personally, and I use them in my builds