Which CD-RW drive to get?

[TonyH]

Which CD-RW?

I want to buy a new cd-rw as my old one is a bit outdated. Which ones do you guys recommend?

 

[poertner_1274]

I use the lite-on 24x10x12, it was cheap when I got it, and works plenty fast for me. I don't see why you would need anything faster than 24 or so, beacuse that burns a cd in 4 minutes. If you need one faster than that, then I guess you could spend more money on it, but I certainly wouldn't. Especially for only a few minutes difference.

 

[acidosmosis]

Both of you guys might find this interesting. I bought a 40x Liteon cd burner for about $37 at OfficeMax. They have deals all the time on different things, so TonyH if you have an OfficeMax nearby you might want to check it out. Also, if you dont mind dealing with rebates, they have some good deals as far as that. Just make sure you fill out the forms correctly and on time. I just bought a very nice office chair for $65 or so and after rebate it was about $35. They also had a deal where you could buy a 50 pack of 40x CDR's for $2.99 after rebate so I bought 2 packs of those. Unfortunately I didn't get the rebate because they did a crappy job on the booklet with the rebate forms in it and I sent the wrong one.

NEWEGG.com Prices
If you haven't bought anything from newegg.com don't be afraid to. They are a very good website to buy from and are very trustworthy. Although some people have had problems, but I would say 97% of their customers are satisfied.
---------
52x24x52 CDRW Liteon Model #LTR-52246S (OEM) $43.00

Cyberdrive 40x16x48 CDRW CD-RW Drive CW078 RETAIL BOX $37.00

NEC 48x/24x/48x Internal CD-ReWriter NR-9300A/GEN - OEM
$37.00

Optorite 48x24x48 CDRW Model CW4801-G OEM $37.50

Cyberdrive 48x16x48 CDRW CD-RW Drive CW088 RETAIL BOX $38.00

Note that with the 52x burner, if you use 52x CDR's you could burn a full cd in about 1-3 minutes. With my 40x CDR I can burn a 640MB CDR in 4 minutes (if I use a 40x CDR disk).


Oh, btw. Poertner are you sure that the CD burner you mentioned burns in 4 minutes? That is about half the speed of my CD burner and mine burns in 4 minutes???

 

[apoc3000]

I got a 16x cd-rw drive and it burns in 5 minutes

 

[aoj145]

I've got a butane torch that can burn CD's in 5 seconds.

 

[acidosmosis]

lol aoj145... only 5 seconds?

 

[TonyH]

Thanks for your help guys. I forgot to add which cd-rw is the best at overcoming cd copy protections.

 

[acidosmosis]

Well, I would guess if their is some kind of protection then no CDR would be "better" at overcoming. That would require some kind of hacking or creative thinking, kind of like the marker trick

 

[Rick]

I couldn't be happier with my Lite-On 52/24/52x. I have had 0 problems except 24x CDRW media is a rare find.

 

[LNCPapa]

I must say that I absolutely love my Lite-On 52x24x52 - no probs at all on my side yet either. Haven't burned a coaster yet with it and I burn lots of stuff in case you haven't heard. I burn anywhere from 5-50 discs a day so I put my drives to work. It's plenty fast and scales down speed as it needs to. I've also heard that it can burn up to 99 minutes on some media with overburning. I haven't used the CD-RW features yet though.

LNCPapa

 

[Rick]

Originally posted by LNCPapa
I must say that I absolutely love my Lite-On 52x24x52 - no probs at all on my side yet either. Haven't burned a coaster yet with it and I burn lots of stuff in case you haven't heard. I burn anywhere from 5-50 discs a day so I put my drives to work. It's plenty fast and scales down speed as it needs to. I've also heard that it can burn up to 99 minutes on some media with overburning. I haven't used the CD-RW features yet though.

LNCPapa

I use CDRWs a LOT! And I can tell you that this burner has the best success rate of any I've ever owned.

It writes on scratched up, dirty CDRWs like they are brand new ones. That's something my old TEAC, HP and Plextor writers could not do. I trust CDRWs more, now.

For the price, it is unbeatable. And I honestly think it might be one of the consumer CDRWs out there. I've had experience with plenty of other Lite-Ons and I've yet to meet someone dissatisfied with them. Even burns CD protections pretty well.

I have the 48/24/48x, but it is flashed to the 52/24/52x. Another great thing about these drives!

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Originally posted by Rick
I have the 48/24/48x, but it is flashed to the 52/24/52x.

How does flashing firmware affect reading speed? How many seconds faster do the CDs burn now? :giddy:

 

[Nic]

Flashing firmware can indead give reading/writing speed increases (remember the firmware controls the drive).

However, something that I've noticed with doing this is that you are pushing the drive beyond its original design limits, so you may experience less reliable reading/writing, not to mention the increased noise/vibration.

Just make sure that you are not seated directly in front of your drive when it is in use or you might lose your head in a strange accident if a disc shatters.

Who on earth neads 52x speed? Not me, and my old drive only burns at 12x, which is more than enough, as I'm not running a cdrom burning plant at home.

 

[JSR]

the cost of the medium

is what i'd use as a guage.............stay behind the curve..........

 

[young&wild]

I agree with Nic, the speed of current CD-Burners are almost at their limits. I rarely burn Audio CDs at speeds more than 4X though my drives are able to support up to 20x and 48x repectively. What isimportant most is the quality of the drive itself.

 

[Rick]

Originally posted by Mictlantecuhtli
How does flashing firmware affect reading speed? How many seconds faster do the CDs burn now? :giddy:

It was silly and I personally don't care about the increase. I was just bored...

 

[LNCPapa]

Here's a pic of the bench results from my Lite-On

LNCPapa