Yamaha drives ROCK!
Written: Dec 03 '02
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Pros: Fast, reliable, cross-platform
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: This is an excellent, fast, reliable firewire drive that can be used on either the pc or Mac computer systems. I'm perfectly satisfied with my CRX3200FXZ unit.
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| akjim's Full Review: Yamaha CRW 3200FXZ CD-RW Burner |
This is the second of two external CDRW drives I have purchased. After doing a lot research I plunked down my money on Yamaha, then four months later did it again adding their upgraded unit the CRW3200 to my collection.
Out of the box the unit is simple to set up. It is Yamaha's CRW3200E burner mechanism in a firewire enclosure. The unit comes with a short firewire cable and separate power transformer. It is PC and Mac compatible. I am using it on a Mac G4 running system 9.2.2.
Set up was plug and play. No extra extensions required. Just plug it in and turn it on. Being firewire you don't even have to shut down the computer first!
Operation is extremely transparent. It just works. Playback of audio CD's is clean and clear. Ripping audio to disk is quick and only takes a couple of minutes at 40x. You get full throughput with the firewire connection, at least to a full-on firewire buss like on the G4. Data CD's also read out much quicker than the built-in CD-DVD on my G4. The unit goes to warp speed while reading at 40x. It is a little quieter than it's predecessor the 2200. This high speed noise is not continuous or bothersome. It just sounds unusual at first.
Writing to one-write disks has been excellent. Do be careful to purchase disks rated at or above the 24x write speed of the drive. Using these disks I have burned every audio and data CD at full rated speed (24x). This is the only place where the 3200 is better than the 2200 in my opinion. The speed difference is not really noticeable in routine use. It is measurably faster... if you are sitting there with the stop watch in hand. But if you go for coffee whilst the burn is on... it isn't a significant difference.
CDRW is solid at the promised speed of 10x . I use these CD's to archive my internal HD and it has done so well. This drive works with Retrospect software.
I have had this unit about 5 months and am completely happy with it.
Both this drive and the 2200 have flash upgradeable ROMS. So when Yamaha release a firmware upgrade you can come along on the upgrade.
Yamaha has also supported these flash upgrades via a Mac updater, which the other drive manufacturers have not done. One the others you have to take the drive to a PC in order to upgrade the ROM, if you ever need to. Yamaha releases the software upgrades in both pc and Mac flavors.
You should also check out the CRW2200 FXZ which is the predecessor model to this one. My second unit is one of these and it's just as solid and reliable as the 3200 and should cost a few dollars less.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 195.00
Operating System: Macintosh
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Epinions.com ID:
akjim
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Reviews written: 6
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