Directory  Articles Technology Previews |
| Derick's Workstation |
|
|
|
Page 4 of 8 Optical/Removable Storage: Everything here wasn't ‘broke' and didn't need ‘fixin' so I kept it onboard for another round. Other than the drives listed below, I have a Seagate DDS-3 Tape drive (covered in the backup section), a USB Zip-100 (lots of work comes on these still) and a Lexar card reader covering all the formats. DVD-ROM: A DVD reader from Plextor handles the general reading tasks, DVD ripping and what not. Works fine, does what it should and nothing it shouldn't. This drive is based on Pioneer's venerable DVD-120 design, which is in turn based on the DVD-106 design. I've owned both in past systems and they're all fine drives. The Plextor offers nothing over the Pioneers (save for the name) but it's priced similarly. 3 Plextors look nicer in my case than 2 Plextors and Pioneer. Not the best reason ever given for buying hardware but it's the truth. CD-RW: In the writer category, I run a Plextor Plexwriter Premium. This drive's specifications speak for themselves. The Plextor Premium is capable of writing a CD as fast as anything on the market, is built like a tank (in typical Plextor fashion) and has more extras thrown in than you can shake a stick at. If you want cool features like the ability to burn over 1GB on a 700MB disk or the ability to tweak your drive down to the very speed with which the tray opens and closes, this is a great drive. The Premium is also great at DAE (though it cannot hold a candle to the UltraPlex in terms of raw speed its error correction on badly scratched CDs is far superior). If you don't have a use for the extra toys, get a Lite-On for half the price...or get two of them. A great drive but a bit overpriced in the current market. CD-ROM: Speaking of the UltraPlex, this old standby is resting in its box at the moment pending purchase of a new cable that will allow installation in my huge case with the rest of my SCSI devices. I love the drive and couldn't go though my system in such detail without giving it a glowing plug. A drive among drives, this is THE CD-ROM to have and has been for years. While cheaper IDE drives are available everywhere today, this dedicated reader will read faster and more accurately than any of them in many cases. I bought it mainly for DAE (Digital Audio Extraction) purposes and here, else even comes close. This drive can extract a clean disk in EAC secure mode (with real time error detection and correction) at an average of more than 25X across the entire disk. Many modern drives cannot do this even in burst mode (which offers no protection against read errors from scratches and the like). If you have aspirations of turning that wall of CDs into a collection of MP3s, this is the drive to buy, hands down. Until someone releases a drive that can beat it, it will rip away until it dies and will be replaced with another when it does. I've played the 72X Kenwood game as well...I said nothing comes close and I meant it. Upgrade wise, I'll get a DVD writer when I need one. Until then, no need to spend the money. Prices are going nowhere but down and the drives are getting faster and better equally quickly. |
||||||||||