If You Know Anything About Computers, Go SCSI!
Jun 08 '00
While this does eliminate a good amount of people, when researching my would-be CD-RW, I found an overwhelming need to go SCSI. In a word, POWER.
While most average users don't know what SCSI is, and I didn't at the time, it's worth a brief discussion. SCSI (pronounced "scuzzy") stands for Small Computer System Interface. It allows you to connect several peripherals onto your computer, such as scanners, printers, cameras, and yes CD-ROM drives and other high-speed devices that require large amounts of data throughput. I won't bother you with long, and perhaps boring computer jargon (and its not just because I don't know any either, buster) so quite simply, using a SCSI adapter card (and you need one, because over 95% of personal computers are made IDE) allows you speed, power and facilitates data transfer.
What this means is that, using SCSI, you can finally take advantage of the true multitasking that Windows affords you. You can burn a CD, and not worry about the fact that you're also on the web surfing around, and playing mp3 files. SO, with that being said, the rest of this opinion will focus on Where to get the drive, which drive to get, and recommendations for alternates.
Where To Get Your CD-RW Drive
It's obvious that you can go to your local Best Buy, Circuit City, Staples and other electronic stores, I do suggest you look online. You will probably be able to get a very good deal at Pricewatch.com. This is a site that other online computer stores submit low Internet-special prices to pricewatch, for the free advertising. You get the savings. I saved over 70 dollars on the drive I purchased. The other good place is to look at auction houses. Places like Onsale.com, Ebay.com, and Auction-sales.com are all awesome places for low-cost computer equipment. Check them out if you're looking for a deal.
Which Drive Is Right For You?
While there are several great makers of good drives (Yamaha, Smart and Friendly, Plextor) I'm speaking more about speed. You have a SCSI drive now, hopefully, you want to get the best and faster version around. I have a 4x4x16x Yamaha SCSI drive. I love it. I haven't had one bad disk. To give you an idea of speed, If I compile my own music CD, and I fill it to compactly (650 megs/70 minutes of music) based on the fact that I have a 4x writer, it takes me about 16 minutes to burn the CD. Faster drives, such as 8x writers take, you guessed it, about half that time. Decide if speed is of the essence, and buy accordingly. Keep in mind 2X writers take about 35 minutes per full disk, 2X writers take about 17, and 8 X writers take about 8 minutes.
Also, decide if you want an internal or external drive. Do you want to drive to pop out of your computer like your current CD-ROM, or would you like it sitting on it's own, attached like you printer or scanner? If space is important, and you don't have much, consider getting an internal drive. It involves a bit more work on your part, but may be worth it in the long run to have all your equipment IN the computer, as opposed to merely attached.
Recomendations and Alternates
While I wholeheartedly recommend the drive I use, the Yamaha 4166S, other great drives are being made by Plextor, Smart and Friendly, Ricoh, Creative labs and Phillips. I do NOT recommend Mitsumi, HI VAL, or Acer. These drives are notoriously slow and have high fail rate. Also, while the bulk of this opinion was in favor of SCSI drives, if they seem like too much of a headache, don't be afraid to go ahead and get a regular IDE drive. It won't be as fast, and you won't have as much freedom to multitask, but if you're patient enough, you can get a good disk from that as well. I recommend the same companies for IDE as for SCSI.
I know it was long, but I sincerely hope that helped.
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MoonBaybee
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Member: Sarah Plain-And-Tall
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