Any Issue with USB 2.0 DVD burners?

Grazie wrote on 4/29/2007, 9:12 AM

OK, upgrading my internal DVD burner for my Vegas projects, anybody using a USB cooker?

I've got my eyes on an EXTERNAL FREECOM DVD±R;RW etc etc x18 dual. It also has LiteScribe technology.

Any comments? Good bad?

I like the idea of being able to plug/unplug from one PC to another. Wont happen often, but could be good for me.

Comments

LSHorwitz wrote on 4/29/2007, 12:51 PM

I have tried 16X burners from Pioneer, NEC, and Sony which burn at full speed in either external Firewire cases or connected as internal EIDE ATA drives. When any of them is connected via a USB2 connection (using an external enclosure), they drop their writing speeds down quite a bit, taking 9 to 10 minutes to burn the same disks I can burn in a little over 6 minutes when connected as Firewire or ATA. They otherwise seem to work properly.

Larry

farss wrote on 4/29/2007, 1:20 PM

The Litescribe feature isn't worth anything.
As Larry has said the USB bus might be a bottleneck with burning but even if you don't plan on burning at full speed ahead there's also reading.
On top of that the exterrnal drives are quite a bit more expensive compared to internal. And it's another thing you have to find a power outlet for.

Bob.

johnmeyer wrote on 4/29/2007, 1:27 PM

I took my partially failing Pioneer A09 and a partially failing external enclosure and put them together. Even though the Pioneer wouldn't burn +R anymore and even though the enclosure wouldn't recognize hard drives any more, the two seem quite happy together and I've been burning +RW and -R in them. I keep it at 4x, given all the gotchas. So far no problems, even given the gimpy hardware. It helps me offload some of my non-critical work and save my new Plextor (which is an amazing device) from getting burned out before its time (its the third burner in this computer in three and a half years).