I’m done with my current DVD+R/RW drive. It writes at 2.4x and I can’t even get discs for it anymore. So I want something faster. I’d prefer the dual format for greater chance of it working in our DVD players. The RW isn’t cruscial, but would be nice to have.
Dual-layer would be nice, but I don’t want to overpay for it if the price hasn’t leveled out to a reasonable price for the benefit. I’ve seen many internal and external drives for under $100 on eBay running the gamut of Memorex, NEC, Sony, etc.
So for those with a good deal of knowledge of burners, what would you recommend? Also, if a certain brand you mention works better with certain brands of media, please list that as well. Buld disks are obviously cheapest, but often a drive has an attitude about them.
FWIW, it doesn’t matter if a drive is internal or external. I can live with either. Thanks in advance.
I just switched to a Mad Dog external, do everything, +/- dual layer drive and I’m extremely happy with it. USB seems to have matured enough that there are no performance compromises compared to an internal drive and I can easily use it to backup any of the five computers in our house. I got mine on sale at Compu USA and Costco carries them online for about the price you’re looking for.
I just switched recently myself, and seeing as the dual-layer ones are dirt cheap now, I think it’s no use even thinking about getting a single-layer one now.
I bought a NEC SD-3520A which handles virtually all formats (of course no DVD-RAM). If you upgrade the firmware, it even handles dual-layer DVD-R (some stores will probably sell them pre-flashed - they do it here in Japan anyway) in addition to the more common (right now anyway) DVD+R9.
I think this NEC is the best-selling DVD-RW drive in Japan right now, followed by the latest Pioneer model. I highly recommend both.