WOW, an RW that fits any computer builders budget.
Written: Jan 03 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: It dosen't burn coasters.
Cons: The shipping software and cables are poor quality.
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| crash28's Full Review: Artec RW |
Long, long ago,….. In a computer store just down the street,……… (Ok, so, I just happen to work there). I found myself going through the week’s shipment. In the bottom of the box was a lonely CD-RW. It looked kind of plain in its blue and red box and the specs were not that impressive. It was an Artec 4x 4x 24x Interior CD-RW and I was in the market for just such a drive. I asked my boss to give me an employee price on it and he told me that on this drive it would be retail or nothing. That meant that my check would be $150.00 shy that week. I took the drive home and proceeded to open my monstrosity of a computer. Next I pried the blank out of a 5.25-inch drive bay, slid the new drive into its new home and tightened the screws.
I was disappointed that the drive shipped with ATA 33 cables (this just will not due). I dug around in my spare parts box (you know, the one that’s always in the way) for an Ultra UDMA IDE cable. HINT: if you use the Ultra UDMA cable you will burn far fewer coasters. I plugged the cable and power connecters into their places. (Time to close her up)
I was yet again disappointed when I saw that the software bundle used Adaptec 3.5. I have personally watched as many a good RW find a new home in the trash over Adaptec 3.5. (But that’s another review) anyway, I wasn’t going to settle for it. I went out and got a copy of Adaptec 4.0 and installed it instead. (Still another review in the making). After the first reboot and setting up the CMOS, the new drive was now officially a resident of “The Tower of Power” which is what I like to call my machine.
The first thing I decided to burn was an archive of drivers that had been eating up so much hard drive space. I had no problems with the new soft ware and the CD burned in about 13 minuets. Pretty fast considering the file was 600 Meg. Since then I have burned many dozen CD’s, some R’s some RW’s and never has it burned a coaster.
System requirements:
Processor: Above a Pentium 100 is recommended with more than 32 Megs of ram.
OS: Windows 95/98/NT 4.0 (service pack 3.0 needed for NT).
Interface: An open E-IDE is needed in primary or secondary master or slave. (Not on same channel as your CD-rom)
Hard Drive: Access time less than 19ms, transfer rate more than 1200KB/sec, capacity more than 75 MB.
Specifications:
Data buffer: 2MB
IDE host interface: 16.7MB/sec (PIO 4.DMA2)
Speed: Write: 1X, 2X, and 4X
Read: 1X to 24X
Mount: vertical or horizontal.
Write function: Disk at once, track at once, multi session, and packet writing. (Sorry no bit for bit)
Question: so, what’s so great about a slow as molasses re writer?
Answer: this one hasn’t failed to burn a CD yet.
Question: why do some drives burn “coasters” when others do not?
Answer: first you have to understand what a buffer under run is. Buffer under runs occur when the buffer in the CD-RW becomes empty for whatever reason. (Usually the drive feeding data to the RW cant keep up, or the RW is on the same IDE as the CD-rom.) What happens next is the laser stops writing and once you stop a laser from writing you can’t resume in the same session. NOTE: new drives are coming out that can resume a session after many buffer under runs.
Question: if the drive is so good why not give it a higher rating?
Answer: the rating I gave was a result of the software bundle and the cheap IDE cable, the drive deserves a higher rating but wont get one until Artec starts shipping drives with better accessories.
I am very pleased with this RW and will gladly recommend it to any one.
Just remember what I said about cables, software, and buffer under runs.
Happy New Year and good luck,
Kenny
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
crash28
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Member: Kenneth Forrester
Location: villa rica, ga
Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 4 members
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