Advice on computer hardware

With my tax refund I’m looking to do some upgrades to my computer. I’m looking to rip and burn CDs faster for the making of compilation disks, and I need more space in which to do so. Can anyone recommend a good CD-ROM burner and a good size/brand for hard drives? I’m looking to spend maybe $200 or so on this project. Also, for CD-ROM purposes, I don’t care at all about DVDs.

IMHO, the best CD burner out there. Two of my buddies have one and they love it.

Plextor 40-12-40

As far as hard drives go just snag a WD or IBM 60g.

Related links:

MWave
NewEgg

Agree with the above poster. Also look at the TDK CDRW’s.

Lot’s of love out there for Newegg.com

:cool:

-me

Plextor is all about quality. I never ONCE burned a coaster with my old 8/4/32. I was impressed just by the packaging alone when they delivered it to me. Custom shock absorbing air filled plastic. These boys know how to do it right.

I agree with the recommendation for Plextor, but Yamaha make nice ones as well. If you want to save a bit of cash get a 24x instead of a 40x… moving to 40x won’t save you all that much burning time… a 74 minute CD takes about 3 minutes at 24x while the same CD takes about 2 minutes at 40x. this is not a huge gain in convenience for the higher price, and you’ll need to save money if you want a HDD and a CDR for $200.

Avoid IBM hard drives for the moment. Their 75GXP, 60GXP and 120GXP lines are having problems and IBM isn’t coming clean about it. Go with Seagate, Western Digital or Maxtor.

Plextor drives. They are the one.

Of course I’m still waiting for my trusty Smart and Friendly SCSI 4x CDR to die before I get one. It just won’t quit though.

Oh yeah… hard drives.

Western Digital seems to be making good drives these days. Fast, quiet and reliable. 40-60 gig is in a sweet price range now. I have several of the WD100 30 and 40 gigs in my machines… they’ve been working just fine.

I’d recommend a nice Lite-On or Yamaha burner, they’re a lot cheaper than Plextor but still very good quality. You can get a 32X Lite-On for under $100 from www.newegg.com . As for hard drives, I’d go with Maxtor for sure. Not too expensive, and rather good drives.

What you look for in a CD-R burner is “buffer underrun prevention.” Buffer underruns are what make coasters, other than bad sectors on the blank medium that you didn’t find in time.

Plextor has it, and I think Lite-On has it.

Not sure about the pricing but I have a Yamaha 20/10/40 that kicks butt for burning CDs.

I have had pretty good luck with Western Digital hard drives. Just make sure the speed is the same as what your mother board takes. I have a Western Digital 20 GIG and it has worked excellent for two years. I will be getting a 60 GIG soon.

Damn forgot a link:

Yamaha CRW2200EZ

And it got a 9 out of 10 on CNet Reviews

I love my mirai 24x (over a 1000 cd’s burnt and still going strong) burner but please do not touch IBM hardrives, I’ve had 2 die on me in as many weeks. See link below
http://www.theinquirer.net/08030205.htm

Merrin

My experience with IBM HDDs is not all together bad. I had all sorts of brands died on me, including IBM, WD, Quantum, Maxtor, etc. To me Seagate is below average.

Broadly speaking, IBM hard drives are comparable to hard drives from the other major manufacturers. They’re actually my favorite. But right now, do not buy IBM hard drives. They are having problems with particular product lines at the moment. It could happen to any manufacturer, but right now it’s happening to IBM, so wise shoppers will stay away until they get it under control.

-fh

Id like to recommend maxter hdds… and I will. :smiley:
But you dont really have to to go hunting down a specific brand of hdd. Just get a 7200rpm drive of the appropriate size and you should be fine. (typcially anything above 7200rpms is gonna need some sort of cooling specific for the hdd).

It doesn’t bother me, because I use SCSI. :smiley: It rocks at 160MB/s transfer rate.

SCSI 2 (80MB/s) is also very good since it doesn’t use up CPU time at all, unlike IDE. I highly recommend SCSI to anybody who really wants speed.

Thanks folks! I actually managed to get this proposal passed by Ways and Means (the wife) so I’ll be acting on this advice very soon. Thanks again!

Here are some now in effect:

Best Buy - WD 120GB $199.99 AR (Amex Blue Price match with Shentech $209. (Thanks Jeffrey) Final cost $100!

Officemax - Spinx100 Pack CDR $6.99AR, Hival 24x10x40 $59.99 AR, Cendyne 32x12x40 $79.99 AR.

Staples - Pacific Digital 32x10x48 $99.99 AR, Imation 100 pack CDR $9.99 AR, APC BackUPS ES500 $29.94 AR