save $ w/R rather than RW?
Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 3:47 amA dumb newbie question, but I poked around for awhile and didn't see an answer. Here's the deal--I'm not a heavy burner; I don't fileshare; I use CD-Rs for backing up semi-permanent data. My regular backup system involves zip disks (which I've got plenty of), not CDs, so again I'm no big CD-er.
I've been using the burners in my college computer lab for my occasional needs, but as you can imagine, using a burner on a computer somewhere else gets annoying even for a sporadic user like me (it forces me to transport three or four zip disks at the very least). So I'm going to bite the bullet. Problem is, I'm on a student budget, so I'm thinking that maybe I could just settle for a CD-R rather than an RW.
However, it doesn't look like anyone even makes burners anymore that are only R's. But maybe there are still a few CD-R burners in warehouses out there for rock-bottom prices. If that's the case, which models should I be searching for? (I don't know how a big question that is--I realize that it may be unanswerable, but I ask in case it's common knowledge among insiders that there are still lots of one particular model hanging around because of overproduction or something.)
Of course, given the post by Intimidator about the $10 burner from Office Max ("Get them while they are hot!", July 27) maybe there isn't much money to be saved by getting an older burner that only does CD-R...but I'm a stereotypically starving student, and every penny counts. And at the same time I want the best, most rock-solid performance I can get: no underruns at spec speeds, no trouble with long filenames, etc. I'm willing to budget enough dough for the top-quality product, it's just that I don't want to pay for any frills--and given my current needs, RW is a frill.
--Mike
I've been using the burners in my college computer lab for my occasional needs, but as you can imagine, using a burner on a computer somewhere else gets annoying even for a sporadic user like me (it forces me to transport three or four zip disks at the very least). So I'm going to bite the bullet. Problem is, I'm on a student budget, so I'm thinking that maybe I could just settle for a CD-R rather than an RW.
However, it doesn't look like anyone even makes burners anymore that are only R's. But maybe there are still a few CD-R burners in warehouses out there for rock-bottom prices. If that's the case, which models should I be searching for? (I don't know how a big question that is--I realize that it may be unanswerable, but I ask in case it's common knowledge among insiders that there are still lots of one particular model hanging around because of overproduction or something.)
Of course, given the post by Intimidator about the $10 burner from Office Max ("Get them while they are hot!", July 27) maybe there isn't much money to be saved by getting an older burner that only does CD-R...but I'm a stereotypically starving student, and every penny counts. And at the same time I want the best, most rock-solid performance I can get: no underruns at spec speeds, no trouble with long filenames, etc. I'm willing to budget enough dough for the top-quality product, it's just that I don't want to pay for any frills--and given my current needs, RW is a frill.
--Mike