Running out of hard drive space....must burn cd!

Like above said I was running out of precious hard drive space and the network I am on is flaky at best. I did not want to take the time to copy everything over to my roommate's computer and burn it on his CD-R drive. So, I used that excuse to get this drive. (heheh....new stuff)

This drive was a little pricey when I first got it but now it is at a more reasonable price. (Under $200 from where I got it from)

Before I had installed the drive I was hoping it was going to worth the money. Well, it is SO worth the money. The first thing I did was do a test burn of 700MB of various demos, mp3s, etc. I had. It burned 700MB in a little over 6 minutes. Out of the 12 CDs I've burned so far I have only made one coaster....but that was my fault and not the CD-R drive's fault.

Let's get to what this drive comes with.

1. A manual for the Plextor Manager 2000 - This is a suite of programs they bundled the drive with. It includes a .wav extractor, a .wav, .mp3, etc recorder, and adaptec 4.0. I think this is a good manual for the user who is not that advanced in the ways of the computer. It tells about everything from using a playlist to using the burn program. Very detailed.

2. Plextor drive manual - This is a very detailed manual that I can see. It tells you what common configurations you can put your plextor drive in, tons of troubleshooting suggestions, and installation instructions. (Of both software and hardware).

3. One 12x certified CD-R

4. One 10x certified CD-RW

5. An IDE Cable

6. Misc things. (warrenty card, things to open the drive with, etc.)

The second thing I would like to point out is the burn-proof technology. This technology is so cool! If I were using one with out, all 20 CDs I tried to burn would now be table decorations. I would use my system constantly while the drive was burning. I would sometimes check on Adaptec and it would say my buffer was at 0%. But all the drive would do is the light would turn a yellow color and stop until the buffer came back! Then....it would start right back up again! WOOHOO! I got myself a perfect CD.

At first I was a little disapointed about how fast the drive ripped MP3s straight from the CD. On Audio Catalyst it would rip the MP3s at about 2.7x which was only .2 faster than my CD drive (a 32x Sony CDU701). But, then I upgraded the firmware from 1.02 to 1.07 and it raised it to 3.7x! (I would suggest getting the firmware from Plextor and upgrading that) So, when I get a faster computer it will rip it even faster! :)

One more time, I love this drive, this drive is (now) affordable, it's fast, it writes fast and it rips fast...everything you need and want a drive to be. If you are a power user and want the absolute fastest, Plextor has now come out with a 16/10/40 CD-RW drive. (Lowest price I found on that was $232) But, there isn't much media that is 16x certified anyways so getting yourself one of these drives will give you a fast drive and a reliable drive.

Recommended: Yes