plextor 16x burner

[Guest]

I've been considering a new 16x plextor burner, I've read alot of good things about it here and elswhere. As I was shopping for one I noticed that the 12x was IDE/EIDE...where as the 16x was ATAPI, my questions follow.

1. Is the ATAPI vs IDE/EIDE thing going to make a difference when it comes to ease of installation? (I've installed several components in my computers, but I'm not as adept as alot of you are)

2. Maybe I've overlooked some good candidates...the attributes that are most important to me are:

A. Ease of use/does what its supposed to do
B. Ease of installation
C. Performance
D. Price

Thanks in advance to any who answer...

"A house divided against itself"...pretty much sucks as an investment opportunity.

 

[Guest]

It occured to me that I shoud let you know what my current configuration is:

Dell XPS T500
P3 500
TNT2 32mb
13 GIG IBM HD
128mb RAM

nothing special here...just thought I ought to mention it....Thanks


"A house divided against itself"...pretty much sucks as an investment opportunity.

 

[rfh1234]

Ease of use? Couldn't be easier
Ease of installation? Couldn't be easier
Performance? Excellent
Price? Average for the speed
I got mine for $240 online w/free shipping, local stores near me sell it for $300 off the shelf. I waited the 3 days it took to get it mailed rather than spend the $60 extra (Plus TAX)

 

[Fa1c0n]

The drive absolutely ROCKS! Rock solid. A kid could install it.

Just make sure to update your ASPI layer file first before installing the Plextor manager 2000 software! Read <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=12067#12067" target="_new">this</A>! After updating the ASPI, the drive and the software ROCK!



<b><font color=green> Have a day </font color=green></b>

 

[blah]

>>13 GIG IBM HD<<

This thing will not allow you to burn at 16x (only BURN proof will save your CDs), but as far as beeing bestest CDRW - it is.

Post, we'll do the "search"...

 

[Guest]

Why will the 13 Gig HD prevent me from burning at 16x? What will I need in order to enable the plextor to reach its max potential?

"A house divided against itself"...pretty much sucks as an investment opportunity.

 

[blah]

The drive itself will be slow, as I understand it is one of the older ones, but you might try it. I have several different drives, only DeskStar can keep up with 16x very well, with older ones buffer goes down all the time even with the 12x on some of them, but I am usually browsing when burning, so if you have nothing running, it might be ok at 12x, but you will see. I would get the drive anyway if I were you. I have it, and usually I am burning at 12x max, just to be safe. 16x is a nice thing to have if I want a "fast" CD sometimes, even 12x and 16x has only couple of minutes difference.

Post, we'll do the "search"...

 

[Guest]

Thanks for that information Fa1cOn...very...VERY useful!!!

"A house divided against itself"...pretty much sucks as an investment opportunity.

 

[Guest]

Ok...I see. It was a Deskstar as I recall, but you are probably right about it being too slow to keep up with the 16x. Actually, I've been thinking of upgrading my HD to the 75 Gig IBM (7200) anyway. If this drive is too slow, I'll probably do it sooner rather than later...my comp's due for some upgrades...thanks Blah.

"A house divided against itself"...pretty much sucks as an investment opportunity.

 

[Guest]

I can burn at 12X without any problems using a UDMA 33 5400rpm 2 years old HDD, you should have no problems...

The best way to fight boredom is sleeping

 

[Guest]

All IDE burners are ATAPI, as far as I can understand.

For comparing different 16X drives against each other, have a look at this article:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/article.php3?articleid=5

Leo

 

[Makaveli]

for burning at 16x your HD has to be able to send data at 2400kb/sec. And this will be the same burning CD to CD so you might want to verify your Harddrive and your Rom drives are capable of these speeds!

 

[Guest]

> for burning at 16x your HD has to be able to send data at
> 2400kb/sec. And this will be the same burning CD to CD so
> you might want to verify your Harddrive and your Rom
> drives are capable of these speeds!

This is all well and good, but what does it have to do with my post that you're replying to?

Leo

 

[Take_Out]

Just so a newbie doesn't get the wrong idea, there are some
IBM 13.6GB hard drives like mine, that are 7200rpm with 2meg buffers and run at UATA 66. These were sold in 1999 on. They are of the DJNA series and run cool and quiet also.
Thanks Take-Out.

The early bird gets the worm. The early worm gets the bird.

 

[Guest]

Fa1c0n

The link in your post"

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=12067#12067

doesn't work. Any other way to get to it? Thank in advance.

CHEERS!

PS. Anyone with a solution should kindly post. Thanks.



A nice day to all.

 

[FatBurger]

ATAPI and IDE are differenct. IDE is the hardware interface for drives to communicate with the keyboard, whereas ATAPI is a way for Windows (or your burning software) to control the drive. That's probably not perfectly accurate, but at any rate, whatever you saw that said one drive was IDE and the other is ATAPI isn't quite true. Both of them are both IDE and ATAPI.

BTW, a friend of mine has a Plextor 12x, and it's worked great. I'll probably be getting a 16x Plextor when the prices come down a bit.

Apple? Macintosh? What are these strange words you speak?

 

[FatBurger]

Ok, this might help:

IDE: (1) (Integrated Drive Electronics) A type of hardware interface widely used to connect hard disks, CD-ROMs and tape drives to a PC. IDE is very popular because it is an economical way to connect peripherals. Starting out with 40MB capacities years ago, 6GB and 10GB IDE hard disks have become entry level, costing less than a penny per megabyte. To learn about the other major hardware interface used in high-end PCs, see SCSI.

ATAPI: (AT Attachment Packet Interface) The specification for IDE tape drives and CD-ROMs. See IDE.


Basically, ATAPI is an extension of IDE that allows your computer to use tape drives and CD-ROMs/CD-RWs/DVD-ROMs.

Apple? Macintosh? What are these strange words you speak?

 

[Guest]

woo... I was going to get this Plextor 16x too, but how fast is 16x? I have heard that 12x does a copy of 650Mb in 6 min, then 16x should do it in about 4-5? I t-bird 1.3Ghz with 30gig maxtor Diamond hard drive (7200rpm, ata/100) and 448mb of pc133 RAM! Just tel me if it will run fully at 16x. you can buy one (retail) for $180 now! And should I use 80pin cable?

 

[ejsmith2]

math rules....

80min / 1x = too slow to calculate
80min / 4x = 20 minutes
80/8x= 10 minutes
80/10x= 8 minutes
80/16x= 5 minutes
80/20x= 4 minutes


I've not done the calculus, but I'm betting the most 'cost-efficient' speed in there is around 14x.

 

[FatBurger]

Manarch, your setup will be more than enough. I have a couple of those same hard drives (30 gig), which will be on RAID when my case and T-bird get here...
Anyhow, you'll do fine.

Apple? Macintosh? What are these strange words you speak?

 

[Guest]

Hey there,
In response to your question on the Plextor drives. I would definitely recommend buying one. If the 16X isn't much more expensive, go with it, otherwise the 12X is just fine. I purchased and installed a 12X just 2 weeks ago, and the thing has been rock solid. You will love Burn-Proof. Honestly though, 16X is a great thing to have, but with my 12X I can burn a 700MB CD in around 6-8 minutes. On another note, be careful when installing the Plextor Drivemanager 2000 thingy, it royally screwed up my system. But I think Falcon already mentioned the updates needed. I don't even have it installed though, I found that the utilities it provided were...well...useless. There's nothing in the Manager that can't be done through other software, and all it does is sit in the system tray and eat up resources. Hope this helps.

 

[Guest]

Hey, just thought I'd help you with your math.
80 min / 1 x = 80 minutes to burn!
That was the easiest one to calculate.