Not perfect, but it's the best I've tested
Written: Jan 06 '05 (Updated Jan 08 '05)
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Pros: Quiet, fast, compatible with many brands of media
Cons: Problems writing to cheap CDR's
The Bottom Line: Your best bet for a DVD burner at a reasonable price as long as you don't mind the grey-and-putty color combination.
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| derek_g's Full Review: Sony DRU-540A DVD±RW Burner |
By the time I finish writing this review, this drive will probably be obsolete as new dual-sided DVD's are already hitting the market. That's ok, though. As you know, it saves a lot of cash to stay a step or two behind the newest and greatest computer gadgets, plus you're less likely to run into problems as bugs are slowly worked out.
Finding a good DVD burner turned into quite a chore. As the speeds have increased, it seems a lot of manufacturers have been pushing out these drives without testing them. Of the number of brands I tried, many cheaper drives were quite problematic. A few didn't work at all following installation. The only two drives I tested that I can recommend are this one and a TDK model drive with similar specs.
This drive works very well with the included Nero burning software. Nero also has an option that verifies the written data to make sure the burn came out ok. This is a great new feature most other burning software does not have. I'm a little disappointed that Nero's Disk Quality Test does not work with this drive, though. I believe it's a problem with the software, not with the drive, and I've been going back and forth with Ahead Software, the makers of Nero, to try and get it fixed.
Even though this is an 8x drive, it's capable of writing at 12x speed using compatible DVD+R media. This is a mindboggling amount of data, 16,620KB/sec or the equivalent of a 100x CD burner. At 12x, you can fill a 4.7GB DVD in about seven minutes and verify your data was written correctly in another six. The link to supported media is listed below:
http://sony.storagesupport.com/dvdrw/540mediainfo_gb_na040830.html
The drive has a light grey color that happens to match the color of my case perfectly. It will probably look out of place in a standard putty or black color case so keep this in mind if aesthetics is your thing. Compared to TDK, both drives performed great with name brand media. With cheap no-name media, this drive seemed to have problems writing to cheap CD's whereas the TDK drive had problems writing to cheap DVD's. Since everything is heading to DVD storage, and because this drive is much quieter than the TDK model, Sony ends up the overall winner in my book.
This is a link to the Sony site for additional information on the drive including documentation and firmware updates:
http://sony.storagesupport.com/dvdrw/dru540adwn.htm
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 100
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
derek_g
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Member: Derek G
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Reviews written: 24
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
My butt itches
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