CDRLabs.com

Hi All,

Just found your site and registered. This is my first posting. My apologies if what I am about to ask has already been covered somewhere else on this board.

I don't know much about CD-RW (External) technology.

My needs:

I have a bunch of data to backup off my laptop computer and would like to get some feedback on what CD RW External drive might be best for my situation. I would also like to start burning some music CDs along the way. I don't need the fastest CD RW drive on the market. What I want is a reliable and easy to use drive that works on my system.

Some info:

Dell Inspirion Laptop
Windows 98 Second Edition
IOgear 2 port USB 2.0 Cardbus
Toshiba CD-Rom XM-1902B
Target price range: <$180 (CD-RW drive)
Software: I want a good software package

Not sure what info is most important in making such a decsion. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, or if you can direct me to a previous thread that addresses this very question.

Thanks,

Inti

Hey welcome to the forums. I think the TDK 40x12x48x External USB2.0 would be pretty good for you. It's quite fast (but you don't care for the speed). It is a very reliable burner, which will give great quality. You can find more about the drive at - http://www.tdk.com/cdburners/velocd40xusb2.html
As your budget is less than $180, I found that you can easily get this drive for less than that if you shop around.
Dell is giving it away for $ 151.44.
The link for that is - http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod ... &c=us&l=en

Inti wrote:Software: I want a good software package

make sure, then, that the drive you purchase comes bundled with Nero, not with Easy CD Creator. Nero is much better.
also make sure it is Nero and not Nero Express (which is a "downsized" version of Nero).

Good point dodecahedron. I agree about Nero being a lot better than Easy CD Creator.
The drive i mentioned and the link I gave from Dell bundles up Nero 5.5 with TDK's own CD Blender Software Suite, and InCD. Those are the best softwares for the job.
And did I forget to mention, that it is one of the best looking drives out there.

The TDK definitly looks like a great buy. I have also heard/read that NERO is the way to go on the software side. The speed is fantastic, probably more than I would know what to do with. I like it.

In my own research I found an Iomega CD RW 16x/10x/40x USB 2.0 with the Adaptec Easy CD Creator, Adaptec DirectCD software bundle for $131.95. Would you have any comments on this setup? It seems to be a little slower and a little cheaper.

http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-10 ... ml?tag=lst

Are there any brands of CD RW drives that lack durability or have the tendency to make "coasters" of your CDs?

Again, thanks for you insight and comments. I really appreciate your help.

Inti

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 2077490545

Any drawbacks to snaging this thing off of an Ebay store?

If you really want your burner to be light and smart-looking, stop reading here... Otherwise, consider an external 5" enclosure and any internal IDE burner. The only disadvantage is weight. The newer enclosures look nice, and support both USB 2.0 and FireWire (IEEE 1394). The total price of an enclosure plus a reasonable burner usually beats that of an external drive. You are free to choose any burner with associated software. If you wish to upgrade, you just buy a new burner, and pass the old one to your friend.

Another important point is that many vendors provide firmware upgrades much less frequently for their external burners than for the internal ones. Further, one can use flashers such as mtkflash by plugging an iternal burner into a desktop.

An enclosure can serve many purposes. When the hard disk on one of my notebooks failed, I mounted it in my enclosure via an adapter cable (2.5"->3.5") to recover most of the data.

@KCK:

I'm looking that way too, but I cannot find any external enclosures that support both firewire and USB2. The problem here is that I currently live in the Netherlands and there hardly seems to be a market for these enclosures. I guess I'll have to order one online. Before I do so I'd like some more info on the available cases. Can you help me out with sone links to manufacturers?

Thanks.

MikeTR:

For almost five months I've been using Lite-On LTR4125W in a 5.25" FireWire enclosure ME-320F from www.welland.com.tw on my notebooks with XP Pro and 98SE.

Before buying the enclosure, I did some research to ensure that I got the Oxford bridge OXFW911. (You could also look for ATA6 for HDs >137GB.) I also ensured that I'd be able to return it if it didn't work on my various boxes.

The Welland enclosures are sold in Europe under various names; you could search for the tags ME320U2F and ME-320U2F. (In my case the ME-320F tag was sometimes replaced in vendors' databases by MD5B-FW like in DataFab enclosures.)

KCK,

I have never considered such an option. I definitly will have to look into that type of setup more closely. Sounds like you can get all the performance for a fraction of the cost. Are there any underlying issues other than what you mentioned that one would need to worry about?

Thanks to everyone for the insightful comments. Much appreciated!

Inti

Actually...I will decide in a couple days if I'm keeping my Asus AV8 mobo. If not, because my old board doesn't have USB 2.0 and because I'm too lazy to get a card, I may have that TDK burner available to sell--at a good price. It's only a few months old.

Where are you located at?

I found the well-reviewed Samsung 32x IDE drive for $35 flat--no freaking rebates :) I love the 8meg buffer on it so that may suffice.

Inti:

I chose FireWire because six months ago dual (FW/USB2) enclosures were too expensive here, and many people are still a bit skeptical about USB2. For instance, Win98SE only needs the MS IEEE 1394 storage supplement, whereas the quality of USB2 drivers may vary between vendors. Almost all new notebooks have FireWire, but few have USB2 (of course Intel's pressure will change that soon). There are fewer problems reported with FireWire HDD enclosures than with USB2. Anyway, to be on the safe side, consider FW/USB2 if the price is competitive. Well, to get the best of both worlds, maybe you could sell your USB2 card, and get a FW/USB2 combo?

I had no problems with flashing my enclosed Lite-On under XP.

Some enclosures are really ugly, and have noisy fans (no power management to switch them off when not needed).

Although the sizes of internal drives are pretty standard, I've heard about troubles with fitting some outsized internal drives into typical enclosures.

You may expect higher prices from vendors who have recently introduced ATA6 support in FireWire for large hard discs, but apparently you don't need it.