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What Plextor-drive?

PostPosted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:24 am
by Henri Tapani Heinonen
What Plextor-drive should I buy?
I need:
+ S-ATA
+ AUTOSTRATEGY
+ GigaRec
+ VariRec
+ PoweRec
+ Q-Check
+ PIE/PIF (1ECC)/Jitter

Is Plextor PX-760SA good?

PostPosted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:32 am
by Gen-An
For those features, the only drives that will suffice are the 716SA, 755SA or 760SA. The 760SA is quite good, but sadly it is one of the last of the true Plextor drives, so grab one (or better yet, two) while you still can.

PostPosted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:37 am
by Henri Tapani Heinonen
Gen-An wrote:For those features, the only drives that will suffice are the 716SA, 755SA or 760SA. The 760SA is quite good, but sadly it is one of the last of the true Plextor drives, so grab one (or better yet, two) while you still can.


Thanks, I will buy 760SA...

PostPosted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:18 pm
by Scour
Act fast, the real Plextors getting rare

PostPosted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 7:11 pm
by Morpheus
I managed to get 2 755SA's a few months ago for my next 2 pcs. I would have bought 2 760SA's instead but they weren't available in NA. For some reason we have the 760A but not the 760SA.

PostPosted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 10:23 pm
by SithTracy
The 760 and 755 are essentially the same, just the 760 offers 18x writing. I'm happy with my PX-755SA and my PX-716A in North America... Just disappointed in Plextor pulled out of the ODD market.... One may argue they didn't because they put their name on a few OEM drives... but no true Plextors is sad because no other drive really impresses me... not that the latest Plextors did too much, but my expectations were higher with them.

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 2:00 am
by hoxlund
yeah pretty much everyone is sold out of 750/760s

quick search came up with zero in stock at any respectable site

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 6:30 am
by Henri Tapani Heinonen
Thanks, guys! I am trying to buy a Plextor drive as fast as possible...

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 1:04 pm
by Gen-An
hoxlund wrote:yeah pretty much everyone is sold out of 750/760s

quick search came up with zero in stock at any respectable site


Fry's and Micro Center brick and mortar stores may still have 760A drives. I know my local Fry's has about 8 or 10. I'd better grab one to supplement the 760A and 760SA I currently have.

PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 7:05 am
by Henri Tapani Heinonen
No, I did not get Plextor PX-760SA. [-X

Please, tell me. Where can I find it? I live in Finland. [-o<

PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:22 pm
by Media2007
That's going to be tough.I've been really doing exstensive searching.With no luck at all! :cry: :cry: [-o<

PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 2:22 pm
by Henri Tapani Heinonen
No luck. [-X #-o :evil:

PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:33 pm
by Halc
Henri,

can you tell us why you need those specific features?

What specific things are you planning to do with the drive?

If you _really_ need one, you may still be able to find one through Central European small computer shops.

Beware though, you will spend a lot of time finding one and you'll be paying through your nose :)

PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:41 pm
by Henri Tapani Heinonen
Hi there!

I am just an optical drive geek and want to test everything related to optical drives. :lol:

PIE/PIF/Jitter test capability is really important. I want to know how good my discs are.

PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:47 pm
by Ian
Feature-wise, the closest thing to a Plextor is probably a Lite-On.

PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 1:36 pm
by Halc
Henri Tapani Heinonen wrote:Hi there!

I am just an optical drive geek and want to test everything related to optical drives. :lol:

PIE/PIF/Jitter test capability is really important. I want to know how good my discs are.


Then you'll also need to find one of the almost gone Nexperia chipset based BenQ drives, a LiteOn that supports Jitter scanning in CD-DVD Speed, a consistent Optiarc model (with Nec shipset) and preferably an older generation Pioneer (that is still supported in v.4.55.1 of CD-DVD Speed).

That is, if you _really_ want to know how good your discs are :)

People probably here already hate me for stating this for the umpteenth time, but:


Home scanning results from a single model (single puh, single chipset) and single drive specimen are not always a reliable indicator of either disc or burn quality.


BTW, if you really want the Plextor, Amazon.FR still lists 760SA as in stock and available for order.

http://www.amazon.fr/Plextor-PX-760SA-L ... 000GYHS7S/


You won't be able to order it directly to Finland, but you could try and find somebody in France to order it for you (to an address in France 1st, then ship it to you separately).

PostPosted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 4:05 pm
by Henri Tapani Heinonen
Halc wrote:Then you'll also need to find one of the almost gone Nexperia chipset based BenQ drives, a LiteOn that supports Jitter scanning in CD-DVD Speed, a consistent Optiarc model (with Nec shipset) and preferably an older generation Pioneer (that is still supported in v.4.55.1 of CD-DVD Speed).
That is, if you _really_ want to know how good your discs are :)


Please, can you explain some more? Why so many different drives? Can you tell the exact model numbers of the drives? :)

Halc wrote:BTW, if you really want the Plextor, Amazon.FR still lists 760SA as in stock and available for order.

http://www.amazon.fr/Plextor-PX-760SA-L ... 000GYHS7S/

You won't be able to order it directly to Finland, but you could try and find somebody in France to order it for you (to an address in France 1st, then ship it to you separately).


Thanks for the link! =D>

PostPosted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 6:48 am
by Halc
This is a long discussion and you'll find most of the data here, at cdfreaks and at cdr-info, if you search the forums (you can search with my username halc / halcyon, although not all data comes from me, but I've frequented many of the threads in question, often learning from those who know more than me).

It really boils down to this:

There are no simple 'metric' standard for what a dvd reading / writing should be. I.e. there is no absolute benchmark

That is, one drive optimizes for low DC jitter, another one for other disc low level characteristics.

These burns will read back differently on different drives, which in turn optimize the reading process differently.

The error often quoted are just what the drive sees. They are not 'absolute' errors low level on the disc.

They are errors that the reading drive made in the process of reading the disc in question. Hence, they vary from drive to drive and even from scan to scan (the process is stochastic, not deterministic).

Granted, both the reading AND writing have improved a lot in recent years.

Still, it is possible to get a burn that scan very well in drive 1, but quite bad in drive 2 or does not read back at all in drive 3.

As a physicist in training you understand what this means.

So, the process of measuring 'write quality' becomes an exercise in eliminating random and systemic error. First in instrumentation, then in statistical number crunching.

By measuring with various different drives (testing for the drive scan-to-scan variation first) one gains a better understanding of how the burn behaves in a larger population of drives.

That is, what is the likelihood that it actually reads back ok in most of the drives people have out there, i.e. it's a 'good burn'.*

* Actually, for this purpose one would need to have a lot of older drives as well, some of which are not so good readers by modern standards, but which represent a sizeable portion of the market of drives. However, this is proving to be increasingly more difficult, as the number of test capable 'older' drives available has become small.

That is the overall picture. Then there are the details about optical pick up heads (their variation), chipsets (how they read, filter and report back the data), programs used for scanning and what conclusions can be drawn. Additionally longevity (how the discs will age and retain readable data) is a completely different thing altogether.

If you want to read more, I can suggest a couple of articles in the Finnish MikroPC-lehti. The other published stuff is either from NIST/OSTA or in the German c't magazine.

The MikroPC articles in question (in Finnish):

http://mikropc.net/rml/arkisto/mikropc/ ... 200522.pdf
http://mikropc.net/rml/arkisto/mikropc/ ... Q4g09.html
http://mikropc.net/rml/arkisto/mikropc/ ... 200736.pdf

Unfortunately even the above is a scratching of the surface.

The best source? Your own research, including the forums already mentioned and a lot of hands on testing and statistical pruning :)

With that said, if you just want to get an overall feel of how things are with your burns, using your drives, then just getting a recent Lite-On (like 20A4P) might not be such a bad idea. It may not be always accurate in all cases, but for most non-research uses it's 'good enough'.

Hope I didn't bore you to death :)

PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 3:14 am
by Henri Tapani Heinonen
Halc wrote:Hope I didn't bore you to death :)


No, you didn't. Thank you, Halc! :)

PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:00 pm
by Scour
Oops, he waited so long for the reply, so I thought he is already ... ;)