Plextor's SCSI line of CD writer drives are fabulous. Unfortunately, not everyone uses SCSI. Well, the Plextor 8/4/32x writer uses an IDE/ATAPI interface, writing CD-R's at 8x and CD-RW's at 4x, and reading at a 32x rate. But as you may well know, burning disks can be very taxing on your system. When burning, try not to burn a bunch of small files that are spread out across your hard disk. Your CD-R needs a steady feed of data. Burning a few large files are better than burning a bunch of small files.


Plextor's drive comes with some Adaptec Software. Adaptec Easy CD Creator 3.5 lets you create music, video, data, and photo CDs. Adaptec Direct CD 2.5 lets you drag and drop, rename, and create directories right on the CD-R.

Plextor also includes some great additional software. Audio Capture 2000 enables you to copy CD tracks to hard disk in WAV format. There's also a link to a CDDB database that lets you save songs with album and artist info. The MVP 2000 software does the opposite. It enables creation of audio CDs from WAV, MP3, or WMA files, and also from CD-DA Audio CDs.
Also included is DiscDupe 2000, Audio FS, and Drive Properties.

One of the greatest things about the Plextor is the wide variety of formats it accepts. It can read CD-DA, CD-ROM (Mode 1),
CD-ROM XA (Mode 2, Form 1 or Form 2 and Mixed Form), CD-ROM Mixed Mode,
Photo CD, Video CD, CD-Extra, CD-G, CD-I, and CD Text. It writes
ISO9660-HFS, Rockridge, CD-DA, CD-ROM Mode 1, CD-ROM XA (Mode 2, Form 1 or Form 2 and Mixed Form), CD-ROM Mixed Mode, Photo CD, Video CD,
CD-I, CD-Extra, Enhanced CD, CD-R, CD-G, and CD Text.

This drive is fantastic, and the software package is terrific. I recommend it.






Recommended: Yes