[KLUG Members] Re: IDE cd burner

[Bruce Smith]

> > Has anyone used a USB burner with Linux?
> > What's the top end speed for those?
> 
> USB 1.1 is slow, and PIO (no DMA option).  So you have a combination of a max
> of only 1.5MBps (12Mbps) in mode 2 (a measly 150KB/1.2Mbps in mode 1!) and a
> constantly CPU pestering device.  Not ideal IMHO.  Then there is all the inter-
> vendor-device incompatibility because USB has a bare command command set.
> 
> USB 2.0 is turning into a nightmare because they are trying to push the
> interface to 60MBps (480Mbps), while still using PIO for most things (at least
> they introduced a DMA program).  The command set still sucks.  IEEE 1394
> Firewire is much better, DMA by default, full command set and 12.5-100MBps (100-
> 800Mbps) transfer rates.  Firewire2 will be even faster.

That's all fine, but how's that translate into useful numbers?  

i.e.  How fast a USB CD burner create a CDR?  1X?  2X?  4X?  8X?  12X? ...
(assuming a reasonably fast CPU doing nothing else, and no other USB devices)
Has anyone actually tried one?

I would mind getting a portable CDR drive for my laptop and other machines
(VERY LOW USAGE), and USB seems to be more portable than SCSI (since most of 
these machines don't currently have SCSI).

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