new system shaping up

[Kerry Hoath]

The document to read on this of course is the cdrecord supported drvies list;
a copy of which can be had from
ftp.fokus.gmd.de in /pub/unix/cdrecord/ or it 'll give you the url to
the web page for the information. Anything that is SCSI3/mmc (this includes
atapi since you drive the atapi with ide-scsi emulation not the atapi cdrom driver)
should in theory work with cdrecord, I hear good things about
the Yamaha, (I have one) Plextor, (a bit expensive for the writers) and sony
who have an affordable 10-spin writer on the market. Plextor are second to none
when it comes to cd audio extraction; and I'd get a plextor cdrom as well
as the burner if it were my system.
Wy? you put your everyday reading cdroms and the like into the reader, and you
use the writer for writing (and difficult copy jobs) only. Yes this means an
extra $75us but not using your writer as your main drive makes it last longer.
Most writers are slower than pure cdroms in read mode, my writer is only 24x
ad reads; which is rather fast because it is scsi but my cheapy ide/apati cdrom
drive is 48x and costs 20% of the writer's value to replace.
Remember that when you play mp3s off a cd; your cdrom can be kept spinning
at high speed for a long time unless your drive is smart enough to partially
spin down when not directly getting read. My aopen does this.
If you burn out the reader it's $50us you fork out for a new one and you can
use the writer to read while you are trying for a waranty replacement. If you
burn out the writer from excess reading it'll be more expensive.

I had 2 writers die on me, an old Yamaha, CDR400 early ones had problems but
all the newer yamaha stuff is ok. I currently have an 8424S. I also had
2 Ricoh drives die on me, but I am assured that the 7040s was a bad model.
The first Ricoh wrote disks that were hard to read at 1x in most drives; and
the second wrote disks that were difficult to read on the outer edges.

I urge you to verify that a cd is readable before erasing the original data;
if the data is important to you and can not be replaced.

Regards, Kerry.
On Tue, Oct 03, 2000 at 03:56:54PM -0400, Frank J. Carmickle wrote:
> Hi Chuck
> 
> On Tue, 3 Oct 2000, Charles Hallenbeck wrote:
> > I am springing for a new system with a 600 MHz Athlon processor and 64 MB
> 
> I would highly recommend 128 mb of ram.  You will not regret it.
> 
> > ram, an SBlive sound card, two 8GB hard drives, a 56K external modem, and
> > a NEC read/write CD drive all for under $1000 from folks I trust and have
> > worked with for several years. Two loose ends I could use some feedback
> > on:
> 
> Good stick with the good guys.
> 
> > The proposed video card is an "elsa" system. Anybody know if that is a
> > problem down the road? I have no clear need for video display right now,
> > but no point selecting a system with known problems.
> 
> Unlike windows and there bad news screen readers, you don't need to worry
> about video card incompatibilities.  Unless you want to do cool things,
> like watch tv on the console, I would just buy a cheep card.  An s3 would
> do the trick.  I like using the frame buffer device.  It's nice to have
> tux come up on the screen when the kernel boots.  The ati rage 128, the
> matrox g200 and g400, s3 cards with a kernel patch, and the permedia2
> cards will support this.  Most of us blinks probably don't care about it
> but I use my computer as my tv.  It's kind of nice to have a tv around for
> friends to watch.
> 
> > Second, the CD-ROM is a NEC 
> device - anybody have any information of a
> > go-nogo nature on that choice? I think I just got religion when it comes
> > to backup policy, and a CD drive with write capability is important in
> > this new system.
> 
> I wouldn't recommend a nec cd burner.  Infact I have never heard a thing
> about them.  I would buy either the plextor or a yamaha.  It's not worth
> the hassle of trying to get something nonstandard to work.  Kerry correcto
> me if I am wrong but I have never seen nec's on the supported list of
> drives for cdrdao or cdrecord.  The plextor's and the yamaha's are
> reliable drives.  They aren't that expensive either.  I know some people
> who have never had problems with the hp's also.
> 
> Hope this helped.
> Frank
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
--
Kerry Hoath: kerry at gotss.eu.org
Alternates: kerry at emusys.com.au kerry at gotss.spice.net.au or khoath at lis.net.au
ICQ UIN: 62823451