12.4 Our Picks
ATAPI DVD-ROM drives have largely replaced
ATAPI CD-ROM drives, which are becoming increasingly difficult to
find. Current DVD-ROM drives substitute well for a CD-ROM drive.
They're a bit more expensive than CD-ROM drives, but
you can buy a good DVD-ROM drive for under $60. For a general-purpose
system, we now recommend DVD-ROM rather than CD-ROM. Here are the DVD
drives we recommend:
- ATAPI DVD-ROM drive
-
Hitachi, Panasonic, Pioneer, or Toshiba.
All of these manufacturers produce
first-rate DVD-ROM drives, although they vary in features, speed, and
price. If all you need a DVD-ROM drive to do is read DVD-ROM and CD
discs, nearly any model from a Japanese maker will suffice. If you
need a drive that can read other formats, such as DVD-RAM or DVD-RW,
or a drive that supports high-speed DMA modes, the details become
more important. See our web site, listed below, for current detailed
recommendations.
- SCSI DVD-ROM drive
-
Toshiba
SD-M1401. DVD-ROM is
primarily a consumer-oriented technology, so relatively few SCSI
drives are available. Of those, the 12X SD-M1401 is the best we know
of. SCSI is usually a step ahead of ATAPI in performance, but the
SD-M1401 SCSI drive is slower than its ATAPI cousin. Although
we're SCSI advocates, when it comes to DVD-ROM, we
use ATAPI. Unless you're building an all-SCSI
system, we recommend you do the same. (http://www.toshiba.com/taecdpd/products/features/SDM1401-Over.shtml)
- Combination DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive
-
Plextor 20/10/40-12A PlexCombo. In
May 2002, Plextor shipped the PlexCombo drive, which combines a 12X
DVD-ROM drive with a CD burner that writes at 20X, rewrites at 10X,
and reads at 40X. In the past, we gave combination DVD-ROM/CD-RW
drives only a lukewarm recommendation. Although convenient, they were
much slower than individual components, appeared more likely to fail,
and lacked such niceties as BURN-Proof. Although the 20X writes and
10X rewrites of the PlexCombo aren't quite up to the
fastest standalone CD burner models, they are more than fast enough
for most purposes. The PlexCombo is solidly constructed, and after
limited testing appears to be as reliable as any other Plextor
optical drive, which is to say extremely so. The PlexCombo is also
the first combination DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive that supports BURN-Proof,
which is a key factor in our recommendation. If you need both DVD-ROM
and CD-RW functions and if 20X writes and 10X rewrites are fast
enough for your needs, we recommend the Plextor PlexCombo without
reservation. (http://www.plextor.com)
The DVD writer market has changed a great deal since mid-2001. Until
then, DVD-RAM was the only choice, because consumer-grade DVD-R/RW
and DVD+RW drives had not yet shipped in volume. But in mid-2001,
Pioneer began shipping their DVR-A03 DVD-R/RW writer, and in late
2001, several manufacturers began shipping DVD+RW drives. Although
hybrid drives that support more than one of these technologies are
now available, we do not yet have sufficient experience with any of
these to recommend any particular model. The attractiveness of hybrid
drives, of course, is that they offer at least some
"future-proofing." However, our
experience with other hybrid products has been that, although they
may do more than one thing, they often do nothing as well as a
product dedicated to one technology. So for now at least, if you want
a large, rewritable optical drive, we recommend picking one of the
following three technologies. For details about the specific models
we currently recommend, see our web site, listed below.
- DVD-RAM drive
-
Toshiba or Hitachi. Both of these
companies produce top-notch ATAPI DVD-RAM drives. Price, performance,
and features vary between models, but if you need a fast,
high-capacity optical rewriter, you're likely to be
happy with a current model from either company. For storing data (as
opposed to video), we think DVD-RAM is the best choice, and we
believe that Toshiba and Hitachi make the best DVD-RAM drives
available.
- DVD-R/RW drive
-
Pioneer. Pioneer invented DVD-R, and
their DVD-R/RW drives are first-rate. If you need a DVD
writer/rewriter that uses discs rather than cartridges and produces
discs that can be read by most DVD-ROM drives and DVD players, a
Pioneer DVD-R/RW drive may be your best choice. Although for various
technical reasons DVD-R/RW is inferior to DVD-RAM for storing data, a
DVD-R/RW drive unquestionably offers more flexibility than a DVD-RAM
drive. If DVD-R/RW is right for you, we think you'll
be happy with a current Pioneer model.
- DVD+RW drive
-
Sony DRU-120A. Although
Hewlett-Packard DVD200i DVD+RW drives are heavily promoted and more
readily available than other DVD+RW drives, we don't
buy HP products, and so can't recommend them. Sony
DVD+RW drives are harder to find, but are at least as good as the HP
drives. Sony DVD+RW writers are fast, reliable drives that write
DVD+RW very quickly, write CD-R/RW at reasonably high speeds (albeit
without BURN-Proof), and read all common optical formats except
DVD-RAM. If DVD-RAM support is not an issue for you,
you'll probably be happy with a current Sony DVD+RW
writer.
To view our current specific recommendations by make and model,
visit:
- http://www.hardwareguys.com/picks/dvd.html
|
Main Menu
|
