Utility of Burn Proof feature

[manish]

I'm going to get a CD-Rewriter in a couple of days - and the final contest (according to my economy & product's availablility) is between Plextor 8/4/32 and 12/10/32. As the third option, HP 9350i is there. I have heard a lot about the Burn-Proof feature of Plextor 12/10/32, but since here people rarely buy Plextor for general home use (HP models are the toppers), I haven't seen it working. I want to know how much percentage of total CDs have you lost due to the lack of a Burn Proof feature? Is going for the Burn Proof feature at the extra cost worth it?
My basic usage of the device will be at home only with weekly backups and occasional CD-copying.

 

[Guest]

I have an HP 9500i burner without Burn Proof and I still surf the web and have e-mail running while burning CD's without making coasters. As long as your machine is a 500MHZ (mine is a 950 Duron),or above you will be OK. If it's an older unit under 500MHZ, then I would close all apps before starting to burn just to be safe. Then again, with the price of blank disks now a days, 1 or 2 ruined disks is still cheaper than the price of a unit with Burn Proof technology.

Andy

 

[manish]

Thanks for the info.

I have a 500 MHz P-3, so I guess I am on the borderline according to that. ;-)

Can you specifically tell me the frequency of trashed discs due to this? means...1 or 2 trashes out of how many attempts??

 

[Guest]

I'd go for the Plextor just because ruined burns are annoying if anything else. I've got an older drive without burn-proof and I've made a lot of coasters. Anything's better than my old Sony drive, but I go for as much insurance as I can get.

More people buy Plextors for home use than you think. Plextor's been making drives for Creative, Iomega, and TDK.

---
Dave Farquhar
author, <i>Optimizing Windows for Games, Graphics and Multimedia</i> (O'Reilly)
<A HREF="http://thesiliconunderground.editthispage.com" target="_new">http://thesiliconunderground.editthispage.com</A>

 

[Guest]

On my new machine (Duron), I haven't ruined a disk yet and I have already used up a 25 spindle pack of Maxell CDR's.
With my older unit (K6-3-450 and HP 9100I) I would say about 1 in 10 disks were ruined when I was running other apps while burning was in progress. When I started to close apps before burning, bad disks became a thing of the past.
Make sure you turn off any power management features and screen savers before you start to burn a disk. You don't want your hard drive to go into sleep mode right before the disk is finished; ruins then every time.

Andy

 

[manish]

Thanks. ;-)

Since I'm planning towards occasional (as demanded by situation) use of my old P-1 to be used to burn CDs while I work on the P-3, after seeing that burnout rate with a 450, I think I should better consider the Burn-Proof option - either way on P-1 or P-3.

thanks again - ur views were helpful.

Manish.

 

[manish]

Didn't know about Plextor making drives for them! ;-)

thanks for your views.
Since I also have an old P-1 to cater to, and I may even try to burn CDs with it, I think I better go in for the Burn-Proof option.

thanks again! ;-)
Manish.