Advantages: Fast, reliable.
Disadvantages: None

...The new DVD-106S remedies the DAE problems the DVD-105S had by upping the rated speed to 16x CLV. It's also the one of the first drives that features an UDMA 66 interface. So has Pioneer improved upon an already impressive drive? The DVD-106S is an OEM version so the drive I gotso it was just the bare drive and the instructions. While Pioneer does have a retail version of the drive, the DVD-A06S, I have no idea if Pioneer North America plans on selling it at this time. Physical Features: ----------------- Thankfully, there is a firmare release available for this drive that allows multi-region. Do this at your own risk! Pioneer is the master of the slot drive. The slot drive's appearance hasn't changed a lot over the past few years. The DVD-106S is no exception. Along with the obvious slot, the drive features from the left... Read review

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Advantages: Faster, larger, with good warranty, shop around for best prices
Disadvantages: I couldn't find any

...(which is also used to connect CD-Roms and DVD-Rom drives) with the latest being faster, although whether you can actually reach the transfer rates quoted is another matter, and all being backwardly compatable. The IDE (Integrated Drive Electonics)drives that you are likely to see advertised today are UDMA-33, UDMA-66 and UDMA-100, with the numbers representing the theoretical maximum data transfer rate. All three use slightly different cables, which all plug into the 40 pin IDE socket on either your motherboard or a plug-in card. When you install a drive it is important to set it at Master if it's the only device on a channel, or if it's a second drive as Slave. This is generally done with a little jumper on the back, next to where you plug the IDE interface cable. At one time it was a good idea not to fit your cd-rom drive as a slave... Read review

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Advantages: Fast and stylish
Disadvantages: Region Coded. - not anymore!

...have my hard drive running in Master, I have this drive in Slave as they are on the same cable. Another nice feature is the ATAPI interface that boasts transfer speed of 66Mbs. UDMA66. My motherboard supports this and so it works well. Most DVD/CD drives only support up to UDMA33, but UDMA66 just makes it that much faster. Note: you need a purpose designed cable to attain UDMA66 or higher standards. As far as I can tell, it can read almost any DVD/CD format apart from DVD-RAM, which are slightly more complicated (and expensive), but they aren't currently that popular due to their price so it doesn't really matter. Access times are also great: High speed average access time: DVD-ROM: 95 MS, CD-ROM: 80 ms High speed average seek time: DVD-ROM: 85ms, CD-ROM: 70 ms The lower these figures the faster it is! Simple as that. High... Read review

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Advantages: IBM reputation, support, quality, Duron CPU, 200Mhz motherboard, 4X AGP slot, software package
Disadvantages: No matter how much you dislike to be seen in Comet, I think they are the only ones selling it. No paper manuals

...usually only runs on a 66Mhz board and is more or less the same thing as an AMD Thunderbird but with less cache. It comes with Via KT-133 chipset motherboard (same as used on Athlon Thunderbird systems!) that has a 200 Mhz front side bus, UDMA66 controller, 64Mb of PC 133 RAM, 10 Gb hard disk (5600 rpm), and unusually for a 'budget' machine it has a SEPARATE 4X AGP slot which houses a Diamond Stealth S3 Savage4 8Mb card, (none of this onboard video business which shares it's video memory with the main memory, - this slows a system up). Other components are a 56k modem, 48x CD, 3 RAM slots, 3 PCI and 4 USB ports. Then it's the usual VGA, printer, games, speaker, mic ports. The speakers look and sound reasonable too, though lack a bit of bass. The keyboard is internet enabled and has programmable buttons for one touch access to your... Read review

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Advantages: Big, fast, fairly quiet. + CHEAP
Disadvantages: IDE?

...OK...This is a very large and cheap hard drive. What can I say but IBM have done a superb job with this set of hard drives. The Deskstar 75GXP series all run at 7200rpm via IDE connection, and I think capacities from 20Gb to 65Gb. This 30Gb drive I'm reviewing here is an excellent upgrade. I upgraded from a 6Gb hard drive which had UDMA33 Connection, and a 5200rpm. Performance differences between my old drive and this IBM one is not dramatic but noticeable. For one thing it can make applications run a lot faster, and due to its higher rpm, it can process and save files slightly quicker. What I am amazed about is the quietness of it, there is a noise as you turn it on, but after it has initiated it you cannot hear it spinning, unless your computer has no fans...even the power supply fan which is really quiet drowns out the sound... Read review

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Advantages: Your very own home made PC!
Disadvantages: Requires patience and not always "cheaper"

...everything is stored including the operating system. The main things to look at is capacity, speed and type. The main types are SCSI and IDE. IDE is a more economical but highly efficient standard. Whereas SCSI is strictly for the power user. So IDE it is. There are many interface types. UDMA33/66/100. It is expected that most drives support UDMA 66 now, but 100 is becoming common and standard. This is the transfer rate between the drive and the motherboard. Also the speed of the hard drive will show the performance of your computer. 5400rpm is the cheapest. 7200 is performance 10000rpm is rare and expensive but will be very fast. These speeds refer to the speed of the disk that spins in the hard drive. The faster they are the faster the drive can read/write to the disk. Capacity 10Gb should be minimum, 20Gb what the average person should aim for... Read review

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Advantages: Fast DVD Playback, Quiet, Region Free!
Disadvantages: Firmware not easily available

...I've just bought this drive on eBay for £35 + p&p and can't fault it. To summarise I find that for the price it's good value for money, as a good friend of mine was going to sell me a less capable drive for only a little less than £35! As I have only used it for 3 weeks, I will edit this in one month to let users know about it's long term reliability. It's main features are: 1) Tray Loading 2) Beige in Colour 3) EIDE interface up to UDMA66 4) Digital Audio Out 5) Comes with mounting screws and cables retail(maybe less from eBay) A summary of it's main attractions for me are: 1) Quiet. This drive is much quieter than my CDRW drive, and my normal CD-ROM drive which is good for films and music alike. 2) Digital Audio Out. Both my other drives lack this, so this addition was greatly apprectiated. 3) Price. I picked this up... Read review

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Advantages: Fast, quiet, great RAID 0 performance
Disadvantages: 1 year warranty

.... Advice: Don't take any notice of the UDMA133 marketing hype. These drives are no faster running in UDMA133 mode than in UDMA100, and I'd say the same of any hard disk claiming boosted performance on a 133 controller.... Read review

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Advantages: Dual Layer - Fast
Disadvantages: None so far

...This is my upgrade from a SCSI Yamaha 8424 cdrw and I must say i had a lot of problems at first! Took me hours to figure out the problem - would burn cds ok but not dvds - if you have the older ide ribbon cables watch out for this gotcha - always use udma100 cables or upwards! The drive can be flashed with the latest release of firmware and should be immediately as it opens up some extra funcitonality not installed when the drives were shipped! See the NEC website tech section! The drives are available in black or beige - i went for black (just for a change) but this has no bearing on performance its just cosmetic! In use the drive is extremely fast and compared to the dvd burners at work beats them all hands down in all modes including dual layer - Its a rather impressive drive although id prefer to have had an online light... Read review

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Advantages: Specification/features, Quality, Performance, Best DAE.
Disadvantages: SCSI interface still more expensive than IDE.

.... They also have an identical IDE (Atapi) model, PX-W1210A and the lastest offering using this interface is the Plextor 24/10/40S. The market is really hotting up at the moment with the likes of Ricoh MP9200A (20/10/40, DVD 12xRead), Sanyo CRD-BP1500P (24/10/40), TDK Cyclone (20/10/40), Yamaha CRW2200E (20/10/40). The current speed kings are all IDE CD writers, so why did I buy a SCSI model when it is slower? There should be no real difference to the end-user between IDE and SCSI CD writers so my choice to choose SCSI was a personal one. I would have bought the Plextor 24/10/40S, but I have too many IDE devices so I try to avoid it if possible. I have a DVD-ROM drive and 4 harddisks totalling 5 IDE devices! I had 6 until recently and I can have up 8 in total as I have a UDMA66 Controller. I felt that my IDE bus could easily get bogged down... Read review

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