Plextor 12/10/32A - The Supreme IDE CD-RW drive.
Written: Aug 11 '00 (Updated Aug 31 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fastest IDE drive today, Excellent software, speed and functionality
Cons: Expensive, comes with Adaptec EZCD. Blech.
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| lpmiller's Full Review: Plextor PlexWriter 12/10/32 |
Note: after too many emails, I've got to say - the deal I got on the drive is over. It was at buy.com, but no more, so no, I do not know where you could get this drive for $209 shipped! Wish I did - shop around, you too might get lucky!
There are burners, and there are burners. Most will handle the light chores - system backups, music making, that sort of thing. A few will work with CloneCD, a program that allows a complete and total disk clone, regardless of copy protection.
Fewer still are fast, reliable, and worth every penny.
Plextor has long had the reputation of being the best of the best. Typically known for their SCSI drives, in the past year they have finally ventured into the world of IDE, and so far have only pulled up aces. With the 12/10/32A drive, Plextor has gained absolute supremacy in CD-RW's. Pricey at around $260 retail, the 12/10/32A is Plextor's latest drive, offering 12x writes, 10x rewrites and 32x read capabilities. Many times faster then the typical 8/4/32 drive, the Plextor is both versatile and easy to use, and comes with a wonderful reputation in quality and utility.
Installation was a breeze. You simply hook up the power, IDE cable and screw the bugger in. Usually, you want to make sure the CD-RW drive is on a separate channel from your regular CD-ROM drive, to avoid conflicts, so I set mine to master on the Secondary channel, moving my 50x Acer to slave on the Primary. Booting up into Windows 98, the drive was instantly recognized and installed itself, no hassles at all - helps that I just did a fresh reinstall of Windows.
At the software level, you have some choices. Plextor supplies it's own Plextor Manager 2000, complete with an audio grabber and a disk copy feature (though not as strong as CloneCD's). The interface is...bizarre, to say the least, and the manual isn't a lot of help - it took a bit of work figuring out how to burn a music CD. However, in playing around with it I've found it to be rather useful. With PM 2000, you can grab a track off any music CD, add that track to a playlist of other songs you've ripped, and burn that playlist onto a new CD. Actual burn time for 68.97 minutes of music took all of 5 minutes, including the bathroom break. Very impressive. The software also operates as a full featured CD player, though WinAmp and Quintessential CD both have nicer features. PM 2000 supports .cda, .wav, .wma, and .mp3, to name a few - rather nice package despite the kludgy interface.
Plextor also includes a copy of Adaptec's Easy CD Creator, which I did not install. No Adaptec software will ever touch my computer - while it works ok, I find it to be buggy, full of annoying quirks, and it has a tendency to not like sharing disk space with other copy packages like Nero or CDRWin. It isn't really up to snuff compared to oh, every single other program out there. Instead, I downloaded a copy of Nero Burn On CD and CloneCD.
Nero allows a full range of copy functions, as well as project creations, and is a heck of a lot easier to use. CloneCD, as I've mentioned, is great for making true backups of CDs. Great if you have a little one that just has to touch the shiny part of Blues Clues or Maisy. Using CloneCD to back up some games, I was able to copy a fully functional version of Unreal Tournament, requiring NO patch. Time to create the disk image: 4 minutes. Time to burn the CD: 5 minutes, 12 seconds.
That's fast, bubba.
A note on CloneCD - only a few burners support the Raw Write/Raw Read function of the software, that allows you to make a complete copy of a CD. Your burner may not have the ability, or may require a firmware upgrade first. Check http://www.elby.de/CloneCD/english/hardware.htm for a list of supported hardware; naturally, the 12/10/32A does support this function.
Tired of making coasters? This is the drive for you. The Plextor includes Burn-Proof (developed by Sanyo), which is designed to prevent the dreaded buffer overrun by stopping a burn in progress till the available ram loosens up. Near as I could tell, it works as advertised; every CD I've burned works like a charm, not one coaster in the bunch. With Burn-Proof, even though you are using an IDE burn, you can surf the web ripping a disk - something that only SCSI burners allowed. I've actually seen the CD pause during the burn process as the buffer filled up, waiting for a good time to continue. All this happens without killing the CD, or adding any excess spaces in music writing.
Expensive, yes. But there are always deals on the '.net to be had - I paid $209, shipped, and a simple search of http://www.pricewatch.com shows similar results. Well worth the money regardless, as this is the single best IDE CD-RW drive on the market today. It is the fastest IDE drive, it is backed by Plextor's rep, and should keep you burning for years to come.
From CD duplication to creating music CD's, photo albums or system backups, nothing beats the 12/10/32A.
Recommended:
Yes
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lpmiller
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Location: Plymouth, MN
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