On Wed, 14 May 2003 13:04:35 +0100
expatriate
Hello After the deafening silence I got asking if anyone would recommend "trouble-free" internal DVDRW/CDRW unit, I might ask about a "mostly trouble-free" device. Is it too early to go get one of these? Should I consider just a CDRW and wait a few months?
What do you want to do with it? If you just want to use it for reliable backups, consider a DVD-RAM. DVD-RAM drives will read just about any kind of cd or dvd, and will write to dvd-ram blanks, which are reliably rewritable over 100,000 times. They are more reliable than CD rewritables. Plus the dvd-rams are just like a hard drive, you format them with ext2 and write,read, and erase files just like a harddrive. The DVD-RW's are mostly 1-pass sequential write (like the cdr's), and you need to mess with iso-like filesystems to write them. (but DVD-RW's are more compatible with movies and other multi-media stuff, and between different machines). You won't be able to read a dvd-ram with a plain dvd player; although I have read there is a new standard evolving which encompasses all dvd types. So it really depends on what your objective is. I've had good luck with these toshibas, but you can find good deals on them on ebay too. http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SD-W2002 -- use Perl; #powerful programmable prestidigitation