Recommend me a CDROM/R/RW drive?

[lord sibn]

I'm looking for something fast, quiet, and reliable in the $150-200 range.

By fast, I'm hoping for ABOVE 8x, preferably 10-16x. RW speed means nothing, I want the raw write speed (MOST discs I burn are write-once. I only have one (backup of /home every few weeks) that is RW. BURN-Proof is requisite, because I want to be able to actually do fun things while I wait.

If the only drive I can get for this price with BProof is 8x (or below, even), then that'd be great. I'd rather have burn-proof than a fast drive (with burn-proof, I don't so much need a fast drive :D). Must use IDE, because as yet I have no SCSI abilities.

I'm looking to replace a CDROM (LiteOn 32x) which has all kinds of jitters, errors, and skips.

Does anybody have any recommendations? I'm willing to go a bit above my budget if it means a significant increase in performance. Just take me a bit longer to scrap the money together.

I'm sure people here have lots of experience with CDW drives, if not JUST because you gotta burn those ISOs... HELP ME! I'm addicted to installing different (GNU/)Linux distros I've downloaded... over a 56K modem!!! (Four CDs done, something like 10 to go...) ;)

Please don't go out of your way to find something that matches my description... But if you happen to have one installed, speak up please?

thx

[Strike]

Burnproof is unnecessary in Linux. I've never made a coaster in Linux, and I've TRIED to force it to make one by acessing the hard drive like mad and it still never emptied the fifo. Burnproof should not be requisite.

[lord sibn]

Originally posted by Strike:
<STRONG>Burnproof is unnecessary in Linux. I've never made a coaster in Linux, and I've TRIED to force it to make one by acessing the hard drive like mad and it still never emptied the fifo. Burnproof should not be requisite.</STRONG>

Really? WOW! That would be cool. Only reason I'm looking to buy a new one is that my CDW drive (iomega 4x4x24 650) stopped burning in 20 minutes, and now takes 38 minutes for a full disc. (whathahell!?)

Not sure why- it used to do it in 20 minutes, but now it hasn't for quite some time. Oh, well. It's no big deal if I can do something like play Alpha Centauri while I wait... :) THAT would be cool.

I can live with the 40 minutes, if things work that way. Oh, BUT, cdparanoia requires me to use this CDW drive (not the CDROM i want to replace); Not that I HAVE to use this one, but I get all manner of jitters, errors, and other wierdness that goes uncorrected. I mean a LOT of it. A 15 track CD will typically have 8 tracks with SOME sectors that turn out ok. The other 7 will have errors at every stage on the progress meter- not a single good spot. (Edit: Put the disc in my burner, and all is well.) Figure that one out. :p

Anyway, thanks. I'm definitely gonna try that. (you may well have just saved me $200 :D)

(Edit: "Like Linux? Want to like it more? Try Debian"... There's a node at E2 titled something like "It's GNU/Linux... Stop calling it Linux, you *******ers." I have a writeup there. But I haven't been to E2 forever now. Only reason I mention it: Debian is one of the distributions that commonly refers to the product as "GNU/Linux" :))

[ 18 May 2001: Message edited by: mastersibn ]

[Strike]

Originally posted by mastersibn:
<STRONG>(Edit: "Like Linux? Want to like it more? Try Debian"... There's a node at E2 titled something like "It's GNU/Linux... Stop calling it Linux, you *******ers." I have a writeup there. But I haven't been to E2 forever now. Only reason I mention it: Debian is one of the distributions that commonly refers to the product as "GNU/Linux" :))

[ 18 May 2001: Message edited by: mastersibn ]</STRONG>

Ah, but someone who hasn't been enjoying GNU/Linux might enjoy Debian GNU/Linux better :) My message caters to all Linux users, not only GNU/Linux users :)

My machine is no powerhouse (P3-450, 256MB RAM), and my CD-RW (8x Sony Spressa) works fine ALWAYS in Linux. I still post messages here, and I still test programs, etc. Granted, things do slow down noticeably, it's still bearable. I'm not going to guarantee that every burner will never have buffer underruns, but I will say that Linux handles the buffer/fifo a lot better than Windows ever did in my experience.

[armando86]

I just got an Acer 12/8/32 for $130, it has BURN-proof too! FreeBSD automagically detected it so I don't think there will be too much of a problem getting Linux to work with it.

[lord sibn]

Originally posted by Strike:
<STRONG>My machine is no powerhouse (P3-450, 256MB RAM), and my CD-RW (8x Sony Spressa) works fine ALWAYS in Linux. I still post messages here, and I still test programs, etc. Granted, things do slow down noticeably, it's still bearable. I'm not going to guarantee that every burner will never have buffer underruns, but I will say that Linux handles the buffer/fifo a lot better than Windows ever did in my experience.</STRONG>

Wow, I feel like I'm typing this on spittle and baling wire. 333 Celeron, 128M PC66 SDRAM, burner is max 4x, buffer is 1.5MB...

But even still, I've NEVER run out of fifo space, and the most I've ever done to it was "min fill rate was 83%" and that includes things like Mozilla and Evolution- though not a sustained rate of activity. I could easily increase the FIFO size, but I want to find out whether I can make it with what I have. The only coasters I've ever made in Linux are the ones where I pull the disc out prematurely by aborting the write process.

So I think given my new perspective, I can at least try it and see how it goes.

Perhaps I'll get that Acer that armando recommends. It looks pretty sweet. :) But I don't know if I ought to, as long as there's a chance that my hardware isn't totally obsolete. :D

thx guy

[vvx]

For the most part, a burner that is excellent in windows will be excellent in linux as well..

[bdg1983]

I use a HP 8250 at work with Xcdroast and while it takes around 15 minutes to burn a 650MB CD, I have yet to add to my Windows coaster collection. As I've posted in the past, I'm thoroughly impressed with being able to continue with whatever web browsing, word processing etc. you are doing while burning a CD in Linux.

I just purchased for home use a LG CED8120B 12x8x32x with 8MB cache last weekend to replace my Sony 8x4x32x I sold to a friend/customer of mine. Should work fine in Linux and in Windows using CD Creator 5 Platinum. Paid $142. Cdn for the bare drive. I did a web search for the LG and found a very good review on the drive that compared it to a HP and Acer. The LG came out on top on just about all the tests.

Any good quality brand name should work fine in Linux.

[lord sibn]

Originally posted by vvx:
<STRONG>For the most part, a burner that is excellent in windows will be excellent in linux as well..</STRONG>

Noted- but CDW drives are not something I buy very often (One in the last 4 years), so I don't happen to know what's around right now. :D

[Molecule Man]

You guys make me feel obsolete. I have a Ricoh MP6200s 2x2x6 scsi drive. I could play Quake in MSWindows without producing coasters. I can play Q3A in Linux with nary a coaster in sight.

[TaeShadow]

I would like to add my name to the growing list of people who have never made coasters in Linux. In Windows, I was not even able to browse the web while burning, but in Linux, I have created CD while compiling software, playing mp3's, etc...

[lord sibn]

Originally posted by armando86:
<STRONG>I just got an Acer 12/8/32 for $130, it has BURN-proof too! FreeBSD automagically detected it so I don't think there will be too much of a problem getting Linux to work with it.</STRONG>

Looks like I'm going to end up doing this... My regular CDROM drive is all but dead now. I can no longer spin a new disc from one drive to the other, something else I used to be able to do. NOW, cdrecord spits out arcane "unable to read" errors with lots of hex digits. Lots of them, as in 6 lines or so. This all happens at the END of the burn process, making for me a shiny frisbee. :(

I can use dd to make an intermediary iso, but I still have to take it from my CD burner instead of the cdrom.

Anyway, I'd get a regular CDROM, but my burner has some slight physical damage as well (front of the unit) and I don't know how long it's gonna live. :(

AND, as an aside: I successfully played SMAC (complete with videos), and have not a single coaster to show for it.