Primary Firestorm Desktop CD-ROM

Advantages: Cheap (around 85£), good quality
Disadvantages: Slow compared to the most recent cd recorders

...Few weeks ago, wondering around the web, looking for something interesting to buy with my beenz, I found this nice cd recorder: Philips PCRW804. It is very easy to install, I just put it in the right slot, connected to the secondary IDE as master (I preferred to leave cd rom on primary IDE as slave, this speeds up data transfer from cd rom to cd recorder), and started my pc. Windows 98 recognised the recorder immadiately, without the need to install any other driver. Philips PCRW804, can write CD-R and CD-RW, it writes CD-R at 8x and CD-RW at 4x; reading speed is 32x. I tested it with many different kinds of CD-R and CD-RW and it didn't give me any problem at all (using Nero 5.5.1.8). This recorder will save a lot of space on your hard disk and will let you bring your software or music anywhere you like!... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: ummmmm
Disadvantages: Doesn't work very well, slow, intermitently recognises disks, poor back up service, need I go on?

...I ordered my Freecom DVD Recorder LS USB 2.0 after my CD/DVD drive packed up on my 15 month old HP Desktop. I wanted it mainly to load CD ROM and burn DVD's from movies already converted to DVD format on my hard drive. Being that my PC had no disk drive I relied upon this external drive to load the bundled DVD burning software (Roxio 9). This took several days and many attempts. Then I tried burning my first DVD. After taking 3 hours to do a task that previously took about 30 minutes, this recorder produced a disc that no dvd player in my home recognised (and I have 4). I found the user interface very unfriendly and it simply didn't work. Needles to say, I'll be getting a refund!... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Quality and reliability of drive
Disadvantages: Outdated and discontinued model

...The Teac 532 cd rom drive is an cd-rom reader that is designed to be fitted internally into a PC. I had this unit in my PC for about 2 years before I decided to upgrade the whole system. I paid about £120 for this drive and at the time 32x read speed was about the industry standard. How times change as now we are looking up to 72x read speeds on cd-rom drives, which make this unit look positively tortoise-like! Specs This cd-rom drive is compatible with operating systems up to Windows 98. It has a 32x read speed and needs to be fitted into a IDE interface inside the computer. The drive measures, (W) 5.75” (H) 1.65” (D) 7.56”. It weighs 2.65lbs. Overall these are the standard measurements for a cd-rom drive, otherwise it wouldn’t fit into your computer! On the front panel of the unit, from left to right there are, headphone socket... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful