Drives > CD-RW Drives > 49x and faster

Advantages: Price, Quality and Speed
Disadvantages: None

LiteOn is one of those companies that you don't hear much about. You don't see TV commercials or printed advertisement about their products, but if you own a Dell you probably had one and never knew about. They are pretty well known in the OEM market for their low price and quality. Let me start with the basics. This is a CD-RW drive. It is used to burn both CD-R media and CD-RW. The difference between CD-R and CD-RW is the later one is rewritable. ...
...behind its quality is what LiteOn calls SMART-BURN technology. SMART-BURN checks the media quality and it sets a limit to burning speed to ensure successful writing sessions & data retainability. This really works, and so far I haven't had any underrun errors. The LiteOn LTR 52327S is a workhorse. I would recommend this drive to anyone who is considering buying a burner. ... Read review

Advantages: Burn-Proof, Speed and reliability
Disadvantages: Warranty, Nothing else.

...nothing B 4 buying. Plextor have always had a good name in CD technology and are still going strong, "If your going 2 buy a writer don't rule Plextor out". Very easy 2 install "Out of the box and writing my first disc with-in 20 Mins" The writer speed is now only average but still fast (12speed ("U can buy 24 speed writers now" (24 speed MONEY??))). Warranty is a drawback as it is on-site if anything goes wrong it has 2 go back 2 Plextor Not 2 the ... Read review

Advantages: Ease of installation and use, reasonable price
Disadvantages: IDE connection is lower than SCSI

...I finally settled on the HP 9150i, mainly because of the very reasonable price, but also because it seemed a lot easier to fit and install than a SCSI model. HP really couldn't have made it easier. They provide a CD which not only plays you a video to follow, but also checks your computer to tell you what jumper settings and IDE cable to use for the best results. Whilst looking into different CD-RWs, I was told time and time again that the software ...
...The HP 9150i's software is very intuitive to use with excellent results when both copying a whole CD and making a compilation fom many CDs. There is a update which is downloadable from the web (5MB, so do it at the weekend!) which adds a few more features and fixes some glitches (not that I'd noticed any glitches). Copying a whole CD was easy because I still have my old CD-ROM but initially, I had a few problems when making compilation CDs. It would ... Read review

Advantages: Fast, Cost Effective, Reliable
Disadvantages: None i can think of

This Lite On drive is very easy to install on your computer. All you need to do is to make sure your PC is switched off and that you have a spare drive slot on your base unit and then slot it in,put screws in to secure it. Once this has been done, connect up the data cable, power lead and you are almost there. The next step is so switch on your PC and Drive is automatically detected by your Windows operating system and will install the necessary ...
...done you then need to download software for example Nero to get it working properly. This drive allows you to write data onto CD's at a variety of speeds raning from 1x up to a wopping 52x. I burnt a variety of data but mostly photos and to backup some of my important files which i tend to do on the faster settings however if i'd recommend writing data at a slower speed as your cd will last longer. Overall,this drive has been very easy to set-up ... Read review

Advantages: "works" with Mac and Windows
Disadvantages: Too many to list.

...work... (using Taiyo Yuden media bought from Microboards authorised retailers) >Manuals... inexistent! After days of bugging their support, a PDF was emailed over... > Support - rude and unhelpful most of the time. Takes days to get anything out of them In short? Stay well clear from this product! ... Read review