CDRLabs.com

Might be a silly question, but I have three hard drives and two CD-ROM drives, all on the SCSI controller. It seems like nobody wants to make optical drives in SCSI anymore, but I realized it's time to get a DVD drive when I accidentally bought software on DVD-ROM. Before I give in and pollute my system with ATAPI, I'd like to know what the best one was.

The only SCSI-DVD-writers I remember was 1x or 2x DVD-writers from Pioneer.

So forget about SCSI-drives, all actually DVD-writers have IDE or S-ATA

Didn't Plextor have some SCSI drives in the past? I can't remember if they made DVD burners as well though.

Plextor made their reputation selling nothing but top quality SCSI cdrw burners back in the day and also the best cd rom drive their was for a time, the ultraplex 32x reader then later the ultraplex 40x and 40 wide. I have had all 3 of those and a plex 12x4x32 burner. I think the last SCSI drive they made might have been the 12x10x32 that had (GASP) buffer underun technology to prevent them. By then I had switched to IDE burners and finally ended up with the LiteOn series of CDRW's starting with the 32x one.
My very first CDRW was a Yamaha 4260 back about summer of 98 and it was SCSI too has they all were considering how slow the machines were then that's prbabably the way it had to be even for cdr's
I don't think they ever made a SCSI dvdrw that I can remember but they had the first 8x one that did pretty well as a IDE unit. I think IDE was easier to make once things got fast enough and way easier for a normal user to setup so thats where everybody ended up.
I haven't used my SCSI ultra wide card in about a year or two, no real need anymore.

If I remember right, Plextor also had a 40x SCSI drive. I don't know how many peole actually bought it though.

I bought the 40 wide, biggest mistake I ever made, it read all right but it could only do 24x DAE tops even after a update and would never go faster.
I e-mailed plextor about it and they said the wide had different board then the regular 40 and would never go any faster and I should upgrade to the normal 40 model
The other problem they ALL had was the drawer getting dirty and hanging up part way in and like that. I had to clean and refile the track on the ultraplex 32 and it worked fine after that but I could never get the wide to work right for long after a good cleaning and lube.
I ended up selling it to a user here along with my old Plex 12x burner for cheap and he may probably still be using it just for fun.
I later found a regular 40 at a garage sale for the princely sum of 5 dollars and used it for a short time, worked at 40x DAE like they said it would and it's tray was fine. I still have it just no SCSI in here now

Yeah, I still have a few SCSI TEAC, Yamaha and Pioneer drives. I haven't used them in years.

Going back to the original topic.. there are IDE to SCSI converters out there if you absolutely must have a SCSI DVD writer.

Ian wrote:If I remember right, Plextor also had a 40x SCSI drive. I don't know how many peole actually bought it though.

They had a 40 narrow, and a 40 Ultra-Wide CD-ROM drive. I have one of each. The 40 standard is in the wife's system along with a PlexWriter 12/10/32x, the UW drive used to be in my main system when it was all SCSI, (three HDD's, the Plex, Yamaha 16x burner, Seagate DDS-2 DAT drive, and a Zip drive, back in the day of the first Socket A Athlons), plus a scanner) so I could limit IRQ usage.

It worked okay. The mechanical hardware is solid, but my disappointment was Plextor's limitations with digital audio.

Plextor never made a SCSI DVD reader or burner, though there was much clamor for the DVD-ROM. Their statements varied from "no plans at this time" to vague hints about it being on the distant horizon. Like someone else said, the only SCSI DVD burners I know of were Pioneer's early units, which were -R only, and something like 1x or 2x.

Yamaha's final 44x CD-RW drive, the CRW-F1 came in an optional SCSI version, which was really the IDE drive with some kind of SCSI circuit-board adapter than sandwiched on the back. They're hard to find now, and expensive (I loved my IDE CRW-F1), and of course they don't do DVD's. That was the last SCSI optical drive I remember seeing.

I meant a 40x CD-RW. I think that was narrow only.

Ian wrote:I meant a 40x CD-RW. I think that was narrow only.

Now that I think about it, I think you're right. They're a cast-iron B!@#$ to find, and ultra-expensive (we're talking $100-200 on Ebay for used ones).

Heck, the 12/10/32x SCSI Plextors still fetch $40-90 on Ebay. When I needed one, I actually found someone who sold me two for cheap, then I sold one later when I didn't need it for double the price I paid for one, and basically got the second drive for free.

Ian wrote:Going back to the original topic.. there are IDE to SCSI converters out there if you absolutely must have a SCSI DVD writer.

I'll be damned. I didn't think that was possible. And there's apparently no performance cost either, at least where ATAPI's concerned. Thanks!

Ian wrote:I meant a 40x CD-RW. I think that was narrow only.

PX-W4012TS
http://plextor.com/english/Archive/prod ... 2_40s.html
http://plextor.com/english/Archive/prod ... _40se.html