Which CD Drive?

[suki_uk]

OptoWrite 52x52x24 CDRW Retail for £ 26.44


LiteOn 52X52X32 CDRW Retail for £ 30.55


Need to spend under £45 for one.

Or shall I just shell out for a Plextor?

[Trash Man]

I would go for the Liteon and I have used them quite a few times in system builds with no problems what so ever. Plus I have never heard of the other make.

[nichomach]

LiteOn here too. Have used them in several builds, and have also used their external USB2 with success.

[XTR]

Lite on

im still using a 24x lite on. Never had ANY problems with it.

[madmaca]

Just to be different - I'll say Lite-On

I have the 52x CDRW Lite-On and it's very good. Pretty quiet too for a 52x.

madmaca.

[Austin]

Has to be Lie-On really as they are simply marvelous all-rounders with everything you should need from a CDRW. Not only that but they're cheap too ... well vs other brands as opposed to the 'who's that?' type of drives. Having said that, you should find all new CDRW are incredibly good, even the cheapest drives have been very good since around 24x write speed when buffer-underrun protection became std. Only brand I'd stay away from is AOpen, very poor quality and dangerous ... their GF4TI were sub-standard too.

[Platinum]

Gotta be lite on, Ive got a 52x here, had no problems with it.

[spikegifted]

LiteOn has a history of making good quality drives... Go for that.

[Stylez]

Originally posted by Austin
Only brand I'd stay away from is AOpen, very poor quality and dangerous.

I have had an AOpen cd-rw for over 4 months now, and i have to admit the quality is brilliant, but whats this about being dangerous? Mines a 52x24x52 got it because the LiteOn's were out of stock and i needed to reformat so got it instead as i really needed one.

[petrefax]

another vote for liteOn - owned / used a few in builds, never had a problem with them..."do exactly what it says on the box"

[deanjamin]

I would've said Lite-On until the other week when I ordered the one you are thinking of buying. It arrived DOA and wouldn't burn a thing.

Not had a problem with any of their DVD drives but that failure has put me off the CDRWs.

[Austin]

Originally posted by Stylez
I have had an AOpen cd-rw for over 4 months now, and i have to admit the quality is brilliant, but whats this about being dangerous? Mines a 52x24x52 got it because the LiteOn's were out of stock and i needed to reformat so got it instead as i really needed one.

Have heard the same from other peopel but check out this source...

http://www.guru3d.com/tech/aopen-explode/index1.shtml

You can use Windows (writing speed only?) or Nero Drivespeed to limit your drive's speed (45x rec), an extra bonus is reduced noise too! I had always thought of AOpen as being right up there with ABit, Asus etc but this coupled with some of their awful Powercolor style gfx cards has really dirted my impression of the company.

[Stylez]

Well how can i reduce speed when running cd-roms, as they do make quite a bit of noice and do sound like their going to explode or something, but never actually do.

I use it to run cd's and copy disks atm, until i get a dvd rom drive, when i can be arsed to get one. So basically i don't want anything blowing up, etc so i think ill down the speed just in case .

[Agent]

Lite on - they update drives firmware to get around new copy protections

[FunkyT]

Liteon! Taiwanese price, German reliability

[Gubs]

Originally posted by Stylez
Well how can i reduce speed when running cd-roms, as they do make quite a bit of noice and do sound like their going to explode or something, but never actually do.

The only way I know of to do it with an existing drive is to use Nero Drivespeed, which comes with Burning ROM. I had problems with it though; I was limiting my 16x DVD drive to 40x (although often it seemed to reset itself to 10x) and it would skip a lot when streaming video from the outer edges of the discs. I've given up limiting it now; it's worked ok at 48x for two years.

The alternative is to buy a new drive. I've bought two new CD writers recently (only one was for me, incidentally) and both were 52x24x52x, with built-in limiters to 40x24x40x. To get the max speed (which I can't see myself ever needing) you have to hold the eject button for 5-7 seconds, and it stays on this 'turbo' mode until you eject the disc (on the Sony) or reboot (on the Aopen).