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Everything You Will Need To Know When You Buy a CD-R DriveDec 13 '00 Write an essay on this topic.epinions It's been almost a year since I wrote my last cd-r article and I've gotten an overwhelming response from people who've read it (over 1900 reads) to write another more updated article. So, after gathering what seemed like an awful lot of information, I've psyched myself into writing an addition to my previous article. Hopefully this one will be as much help as the last one, if not more. The quest for backing up audio/video/data has always presented itself in different shapes. Early on it was the 5.25 inch floppy, then the 3.5. A breakthrough came when the zip disc arrived in 1995 and nothing much came about until the consumer availability of the cd-recordable drives in the late 90's. No other multimedia product has brought with it so much change in the way we store data as the cd-recordable drive has. It nearly septupled (7 times) the amount we could store onto a portable disc and paved the way for "backing up" audio and data cds. I'm sure you've all borrowed your friends cds and copied them making yourself feel "naughty" because you're somehow stealing from the recording industry or committing software piracy. I have yet to meet any person that hasn't done this ever so popular deed so it can't be all that bad, right? Anyways, enough with the intro and here goes the real reason why you're reading this article.. to find out what types of cd-r's and cd-rw's are good for you and which ones you should probably stay away from. Platform The first thing that we need to establish is the platform you're using. Are you using a mac or a pc? This comes in very important when dealing with the types of connections that the cd recordable drives have. Mac's and PC's have a common connection in USB (universal serial bus). PC cd-recordable drives come in one of 3 common formats: USB, SCSI, (E)IDE. MACS normally come in either USB or FIREWIRE, which is very similar to scsi, but has its own type of connection. You may ask why so many different connections for a single platform. Well, the answer is fairly simple: speed. The PC versions vary in speed going from EIDE>SCSI>USB slowest to fastest, although some scsi connections, primarily the most recent ones, can go faster than USB, the USB ones normally go faster. In MAC versions, the FIREWIRE and USB have similar speeds. When I mention "speeds", I'm referring to the speed at which the connection relays information from the cd-r to the hard drive and vice versa. This has nothing to do with the speed at which it writes, which relies on the physical speeds of the writer. SCSI vs. (E)IDE Ahh yes, the biggest question that a novice has when purchasing an important piece of hardware: scsi or ide? Well, think of what you will be doing while you record cds. If you’re one of those people that has to use his/her computer 24/7 and can’t wait patiently while the cd-r burns you a cd, then you might opt for a SCSI drive (if you have an IDE/EIDE hard drive). The reason for this is somewhat confusing, but let me explain it in easier terms. Think of your motherboard as a post office. It receives information from all over the place and in different formats. In normal PC systems, the main source of information comes from IDE/EIDE hard drives. Now, if you add-on a SCSI card and put a SCSI cd-r in, you will have two entirely different sources of information. That means that there are less chances of the 2 different sources from intertwining and therefore you have 2 completely different channels of communication (IDE and SCSI). If you’re messing on your IDE hard drive while your IDE cd-r drive is burning a cd, you might mess up the recording and end up with a wasted cd. It’s the same with a SCSI hard drive and a SCSI cd-r. BUT, if have an IDE hard drive and a SCSI cd-r, you will more than likely not experience any problems with bad recordings because you are using 2 different channels of communication with your computer and that results in less confusion. Hopefully that clears up a few things? If not, e-mail me, we’ll talk. What Do You Need It For? This is probably the hardest question to answer because sometimes it's hard to really state what you want to do with a product. Most people would quickly state that they want to use it to record cds, and yes, that's probably the biggest use of cd-r drives. If you're working in a business chances are you backup your data. A cd-r is usually a tad much for storing most office files to because it's probably not worth the wait/cost since a floppy, tape or zip drive do the same in much less time. If you're an audiophile or a multimedia freak, a cd-r is probably a good thing to have around because you can easily backup cds or hundreds of megs of graphics onto a CD within a fairly short time. If you're a DJ, having a cd-r drive makes it easy to duplicate your demo cds and distribute them at local shows and such. If you own a small business, and you want to start selling your software or information, cd's are a very inexpensive way of doing it (just look at AOL) and purchasing a few cd-r discs will make it very easy on your wallet. If you do a lot of things on your computer, you might want to look at the buffers cd-r drives come with. A lot of models will give you anywhere from half a megabyte to 2 megabyte buffers. Some of the higher models will provide you with 2-4 megabytes of buffer space. You might ask what the heck buffer space is and why you need it, and that question can be simply answered. Consider your cd-r drive a busy office employee and consider the buffer space to be the cd-r’s work desk. The more space the office employee has, the more things he can do at one time without messing up. The less room he has, he could easily lose things on his work desk and make mistakes. It’s the same concept with a cd-r drive and buffer space. The more buffer space a cd-r drive has, the more things you can do at one time on your computer while you record things without having a bad recording session (bad burnt disc). Buffer space is a no mans land of space on your cd-r which slowly takes the data you give it and feeds it to the cd-r. The more space you have, the less mistakes you are likely to make while multi-tasking on the computer. Internal vs. External This is mostly a personal preference, in my opinion. One of the bigger factors in deciding external vs. internal would be the availability of a 5.25 bay on your computer. If you don’t have one, then you’ll be forced to go external. If you do have one, you might have a few other factors that should be taken into consideration. If you travel a lot and/or have a laptop, you might want to get an external USB so that you can use it on your laptop or transport the cd-r drive from pc to pc. If you have friends/family that have computers that you could foresee wanting to use your cd-r drive, you might also want to get an external so you can easily transport it to their place and use it with fairly no hassle. Other than those reasons for getting an external, if you have the space in your PC, get an internal. The internals are always cheaper than the externals and for one big reason: casing. The externals have that big nice case around the drive whereas the internals are just another naked drive. Save yourself an easy 30-50 bucks if you can. What Is Your Price Range? This question will probably single-handedly answer the rest of the questions because if you're interested in superhigh recording speeds you'll spend more than someone who would rather just have a drive that can record at a comfortable speed. When I say superhigh and comfortable, let me give you an example of what speeds I'm talking about: a 4x speed cd-r will record a full cd in usually 12-16 minutes. An 8x will record it in roughly half the time it takes a 4x and a 12x will do it in 1/3rd the time it takes a 4x. Now, these cd-rs vary greatly in price. You can purchase a 4x for under 200 dollars easily, whereas a 12 will normally cost you over 250-300 dollars. The 8x will be in between those, but can also jump into the higher 300's. Only you really know how much you can spend and you might think that spending more money is a better investment for the future. Well, yes and no. You can always find a bargain for brand name products but it’s really up to you how much you want to look. Going to a local retail store and purchasing something for 250 might not always be the best buy because it might just be the fact that some brands aren’t available at the stores and therefore you are given choices that aren’t necessarily the best but the companies can charge you “good brand” prices. Be aware of these kinds of things and thoroughly look through the different brands. The Right Brands for the Right Prices I’ll talk strictly about cd-r drives that are 4x speed or higher because nowadays, you don’t really want stuff slower than that because it’s just not worth the wait (30-40 minutes to record a cd). 100-200 dollars Surprisingly enough, there are many accredited brands who have great customer service. Panasonic has 2 models, the 7502 (4x write, 8x read) and the 7503 (8x read, 32x read) which are very affordable and also their IDE counterparts the 7582/6. There are also a few cd-rw drives for under 200 dollars that are produced by Panasonic which I haven’t personally used but have heard many good things about. Sony also produced a few 4/8 speed cd-r drives for under 200 dollars which are good for the person who likes the Sony name and also likes to spend little money. Memorex thrives in this price bracket with their many CD-RW drives ranging from the 4x8x32 to the 8x12x32 drives. ( the first number is the write speed, the second number is the re-write speed and the third is the read speed, for those of you who are wondering what the heck I’m talking about). 200+ dollars Here’s where you can get those cd-r drives with the 4 megabyte buffers and the higher speeds such as 12x. Plextor and Yamaha both produce high quality 12x cd-rw drives with 4 megabyte buffers which cost easily in the upper 200’s into the lower 400’s. These drives are intended for the hardcore cd-recording person and are a tad more than anyone really needs. If you’ve rated yourself as an average user according to my “WHAT DO YOU NEED IT FOR”, then you won’t have to buy these drives unless you feel compelled to spend a lot of cash for a drive that will, of course, give you more than you will ever need. Overall Ok, well, I’ve given you practically everything you will ever need to know about cd-r drives without handing you the one you should buy. This purchase will almost always pay for itself in the endless amounts of cds you will be copying for you and your friends. Just think of how you can impress your girlfriend with a new cd of her favorite rock toons. Or imagine the amount of love you might receive for making your wife that “LOVE CD” you’ve always wanted to make. The mere satisfaction of recording your own compilation cd’s should be enough to warrant this purchase. Just be very knowledgeable with what you are purchasing and make sure you buy what you can afford and what you will use. Overbuying never hurts, but underbuying can, so make sure you make the right choice. Hopefully I’ve been able to help you out in your purchase and I’d like to thank everyone for reading my article. I received so many good emails on my first article, I felt compelled to write a newer, more updated one, for people, almost ONE year after I started writing for epinions. THANK YOU.  |
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