choosing an external DVD burner

[Jo-Anne]

Shoot! All my typing was in vain. You shouldn't be so trigger-happy;
about 12 hours from question to purchase. Hopefully the drive will
work for your needs.

Thank you again, Patok! I only SEEM trigger-happy. Actually, I've been
contemplating this purchase for almost a year and a half--and finally
decided I should just do it. Bill's response was what I needed to get myself
moving.

Jo-Anne

 

[Tester]

I don't disagree with anything you said. Although if you wanted to do a
lot of burning, I don't think you would want to use any USB burner. I
would be using an internal burner instead myself. Don't you think so?

You must joking right? Jo-anne is not going to do a lot of burning.
She is still trying to get hang of various CD/DVD burners and all she
has at present is a basic Netbook. How are you going to install an
internal burner for her?

 

[BillW50]

You must joking right? Jo-anne is not going to do a lot of burning.
She is still trying to get hang of various CD/DVD burners and all she
has at present is a basic Netbook. How are you going to install an
internal burner for her?

I think you meant this for Patok, as I totally agree with you. Although
external DVD drives are even useful for non-netbooks too. Even though I
have three netbooks too. And no, I rarely burn from a netbook. Usually
just interested in installing things from CD/DVD actually. ;-)

 

[Patok]

I don't disagree with anything you said. Although if you wanted to do a
lot of burning, I don't think you would want to use any USB burner. I
would be using an internal burner instead myself. Don't you think so?

Certainly. But I was writing in the context of a laptop/netbook that have no
space for a big internal drive. If you use a desktop/tower, then the internal
burner is the way to go.
I use several laptops, but no desktop; that's why I have the external powered
burner. Other than that, one of my laptops already has its internal drive with
exactly the same parameters as the one Jo-Anne is buying - reads/writes
everything at up to 8X. Not only is it slow (and one has to factor in the
verification time after burning - hopefully nobody here burns without verifying
the written data), but it overheats, so I can't really burn more than one
regular DVD at one sitting. Without a cool-off period, the next ones become
coasters.

 

[Patok]

I don't know what kind of laptop you have? But I have over a dozen. And
most of them have internal burners. And six of them have removable drive
bays. So I can insert an internal burner into any of them very easy.

It sounds like yours doesn't have an internal burner. Well you can
replace it with one or get an external burner. It sounds like you did
the latter. And in this case, the slimline design probably would not be
a good choice if you burn a lot.

The above passage and the one that follows show that there's some
miscommunication. The laptop I was talking about *has* an internal burner - the
one that overheats with heavy use. That fact, and because it is slow at 8X, made
me buy the external powered burner. There would be no point in replacing it with
another just as slow, even if it didn't overheat.

I haven't ran into any overheating problems. Although if I did, I would
add a fan. If it had one, I would add a bigger one. As I never had a
problem yet when I had to wait and let it cool down (ok back in the CD
only days I did, but not for DVD burners). As that would be totally
unacceptable to me.

True, but how do you add a fan to an internal slim-line laptop drive?

 

[BillW50]

In

The above passage and the one that follows show that there's some
miscommunication. The laptop I was talking about *has* an internal
burner - the one that overheats with heavy use. That fact, and
because it is slow at 8X, made me buy the external powered burner.
There would be no point in replacing it with another just as slow,
even if it didn't overheat.

The vast majority of internal laptop optical drives are just plain
slimline drives with extra brackets and sometimes adapters. So you can
put in virtually any type you want too.

True, but how do you add a fan to an internal slim-line laptop
drive?

Oh, I thought you were talking about an external 5¼ type. So what kind
of laptop do you have that gets so hot? All of mine run relatively cool,
except for my gaming laptop. But I wouldn't use that one to burn DVDs
anyway.

 

[Patok]

Patok wrote:

The vast majority of internal laptop optical drives are just plain
slimline drives with extra brackets and sometimes adapters. So you can
put in virtually any type you want too.

Any slimline, you mean. Back when I was looking for a replacement drive, all
slimlines were no more than 8X, that is, the same as what I already had. As
there was no way to put in a full-sized one, I bought an external one.

Oh, I thought you were talking about an external 5¼ type. So what kind
of laptop do you have that gets so hot? All of mine run relatively cool,
except for my gaming laptop. But I wouldn't use that one to burn DVDs
anyway.

It is not the laptop that gets hot, it is the drive itself. It "helps" that
the radiator and fan assembly are diagonally on the other corner of the laptop,
and while the chips sit comfortably around 45°C, the drive itself heats up. With
use, that is. Burning one DVD is enough to feel it by touch, on the panel above
the drive.

 

[BillW50]

In

Any slimline, you mean. Back when I was looking for a replacement
drive, all slimlines were no more than 8X, that is, the same as what
I already had. As there was no way to put in a full-sized one, I
bought an external one.

Only x8 speed? I wonder if they are still limited to this speed? As I
believe all of my slimline drives all are x8 speed.

It is not the laptop that gets hot, it is the drive itself. It
"helps" that the radiator and fan assembly are diagonally on the
other corner of the laptop, and while the chips sit comfortably
around 45°C, the drive itself heats up. With use, that is. Burning
one DVD is enough to feel it by touch, on the panel above the drive.

Well mine do get hot, but I never had one quit writing reliably. While I
do have lots of computers around here, six of them have swappable drive
bays. So it is easy to pull one out and feel and test with an IR temp
probe. I dunno, it sounds like your solutions sounds the best for you.
And can you actually burn x8 or faster with USB? As I don't see those
speeds with USB optical drives.

 

[Patok]

Only x8 speed? I wonder if they are still limited to this speed? As I
believe all of my slimline drives all are x8 speed.

I haven't checked recently, but I think that's still the case. I wonder if
any of them wrote Blu-ray too, wouldn't that increase the normal DVD speed? I
don't know.

And can you actually burn x8 or faster with USB? As I don't see those
speeds with USB optical drives.

Oh yes. As I mentioned before, not 16X, because in my setup, where the laptop
is connected to an external powered USB2 hub, and the DVD writer is connected to
that, the max speed to the writer is about 20MB/s, a little less than the 22MB/s
of 16X. I burn reliably with 12X on normal DVDs, and 8X on DVD+R DL. Actually I
*can* set the burn speed to 16X, and it works, but at the end of the disk the
USB can't keep up with the burner, and it has to pause. This leads to
oscillations in the effective writing speed, and to oscillations in the read
speed of the written disk (as seen with Nero DVD speed). So I *could* burn in
16X, I just prefer not to risk it.
The stupid drive boasts that it can write DVD+R at 22X. Yeah right. I'm sure
it can, when taken out of its enclosure and connected directly to a SATA cable
inside a desktop; connected via USB, no way. And it can write DVD-RAM at 12x;
that would be wonderful, if only I could find an actual DVD-RAM disk rated for
more than 5X.