best performing DVD drive?

[bledd]

doing an extensive ammount of 'backup' so am after the best drive. (must be <£50)

any ideas?

please only answer after seeing a review of a drive

[acidrainy]

What kind of drive are you after....... your doing backup, are you wanting to record DVDs ?

[daverobev]

SCSI!

Or, something with a large cache buffer. Try looking at the latest SiSoft Sandra drive comparison bit to see what can sustain high transfer rates.

[Austin]

You really need to look indepth esp at the specific things you want the drive to do, esp if we're talking DVD Writers. I forget the precise terminology but things to consider are ...

* Multi-region support (1 part is drive and the other sw player).
* Ability to read a disc at maximum speed (many are capped as to prevent/deter copying).
* Consider the sw you need, most is avail free and I can give you info if you're interested.
* CD Writing speed, can be as low as 12x or as high as 24x.
* Updated (even unofficial) drive firmware to increase drive writing speed or make more discs compatible.

For a DVD Writer you should also get something like the Sony DWU10A or NEC ND1300A which can handle the 2 important formats +R/RW and -R/RW. If you go for DVD writing pay particular attention to the compatible discs as much like the early days of CD Writers there are lots of incompatiblities. HTH!

[Rabs]

If your looking for a reader, look no further than a Liteon (JVC) DVD-Rom.

Pros:

Cheap (but good!)
Very fast ripping speed of DVD Video and CD Audio.
Quiet compared to some competitors.
Tried and tested on the fly copying of various cd's at 32x reliably.

Cons:

The name Liteon doesn't sound as good as Sony or Pioneer.
Tray only, a slot load Liteon would be heaven.

My opinion anyway

[Austin]

Yup Liteon are excellent all rounders, both the CDRW and DVD-ROM drives. Rabs makes good comments but another point is they are EASY to multi-region too! As for slot loading, it is 'sexy' but can have its downsides too.

[Rabs]

Thanks for that Austin, because the Liteon drives are so widespread, so are the region free firmware...

[bledd]

sorry, i meant DVD-Rom drives, not DVDRW, should have made myself clearer

currently have the 106S (Pioneer slot drive) -not gonna dabble with SCSI, just after best drive -cheers for comments

[acidrainy]

Originally posted by cky2k
sorry, i meant DVD-Rom drives, not DVDRW, should have made myself clearer

currently have the 106S (Pioneer slot drive) -not gonna dabble with SCSI, just after best drive -cheers for comments

In that case, I hear the Lite-ON's are good drives......
I use a CD-RW from them..... Not one burn yet!

Only go good things to say about them really

[Nacrisa]

The Sony-DDU1621 I have is great (and cheap), though it sounds quite tricky to flash reliably, from what I've seen on the firmware forums (which is the reason I've not given it a go yet).

[spikegifted]

LG makes some nice and cheap drives that are quite good performers.

[dpm]

I'm using a Liteon LTD166 - cheap from ebuyer. Seems like a good drive, but noisy with data DVDs.

Its fine, however, with movies - it spins up to max speed (and noise) when they start to run, and then dials back down to near silence.

And excuse the newbie question, but what is it about slot drives that makes them so highly rated? I would have thought that they'd only increase the possibility of scratches (never having used one)

[Rabs]

The actual slot mechanism has like 'foam' along the top and bottom of the slot, so it actually cleans (slightly) the cd/dvd your inserting.

Besides not everyone wants a tray loader, nothing wrong with being different...