[KLUG Members] IDE cd burner

[Bruce Smith]

> I can get a 16x10x40 IDE Yamaha cd-burner for $130.  Here are some concerns:
> 
> 1.  It is supposed to burn a cd in 5 minutes.  It seems reasonable to use an
> IDE system If I can afford to wait the 5 minutes without touching the key board. 

For IDE burners I look for models that have the "burnproof" option.
That allows the burner to stop at a fixed point when it's buffer
gets low, and restart the burn without trashing the CDR.  Basically
that means you can't trash a burn with a buffer underrun.

I haven't look lately, but I've only seen a couple different brands that 
have "burnproof".  Plextor (my personal favorite), and Sanyo (I think).

> Are there other reasons to avoid an IDE CD-burner??

The only other problem I've found with IDE burners is if they lock 
up for some reason (usually rare), it requires a reboot to fix them.
Where SCSI devices can usually be unlocked with a cdrecord -reset.

> 2.  I have a 450 P3 with 128 RAM and an Abit MB. It has 2 IDE hard
> drives on one controler and one cd-rom on the other.  Can I put
> the cd-burner on the same controler as the cd-rom using a dual interface cable?

That's the way mine is setup, and it's no problem with burnproof!  :-)
Without burnproof, I wouldn't be able to do a CD to CD copy at anything
faster than 8X.

> 3.  Would I notice a difference by upgrading the RAM to 256?

Probably not, unless you are swapping now.

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Bruce Smith                bruce@armintl.com
System Administrator / Network Administrator
Armstrong International, Inc.
Three Rivers, Michigan  49093  USA
http://www.armstrong-intl.com/
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