[Ham-Computers] RE: Adding a DVD burner (questions)

Sat Jul 28 13:19:49 EDT 2007

It will be an issue Phil, unless you make sure you are using the proper 
media! Many DVD discs do not work on a different machine. Which is why I 
heavily researched it in depth for the HHRP project. Use the ones I 
suggested
and you will be OK.
Duane Fischer, W8DBF/WPE8CXO
dfischer at usol.com
HHI: Halligan's Hallicrafters International
http://www.w9wze.net
HHRP: Historic Halligan Radio Project
hhrp.w9wze.net

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Philip, KO6BB" <ko6bb at ko6bb.com>
To: "Computers (or other) used for amateur radio, communications, or 
experimenting" <ham-computers at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2007 12:10 PM
Subject: Re: [Ham-Computers] RE: Adding a DVD burner (questions)

> Thank you Aaron,
>
> I'll look into the availability of the Pioneer and Plextor drives.  My 
> preference is to "buy locally" or via phone rather than over the Internet 
> as I 'really' don't like sending out my credit card numbers over the net. 
> Even though I "put together" my Systemax computer from Tiger Direct 
> through the Internet, I was able to talk to them on the phone to complete 
> the deal.  So that may be an option.
>
> Though I'm still concerned about being able to read the disks later on 
> when I may have a different machine, perhaps if I standardize on a brand 
> of drive that will never be an issue.
>
> The MAM-A DVDs do look like a good product, with their gold plating etc. 
> At about 149.99 for a 50 count spindle of 4.7GB DVD's they should be good! 
> They supposedly have a 100+ year longevity, in other words, would outlive 
> me.  Perhaps a "one time" purchase to archive the best (and most difficult 
> to replace) part of the library would be a good move.  Then use less 
> costly DVD's for the routine backups.
>
> I HAVE to do something.   Quite sometime back I lost a LOT of OTR that I 
> haven't been able to replace again when a "power surge" shut down my 
> computer during the dubbing to external drive process.  Somehow I lost 
> access to a number of "genre directories" (each genre contains many 
> different program directories) on my "D drive" where it's all kept as well 
> as had to reformat the external drive which had become corrupted.  A 
> scandisk also disclosed that the power flop had also corrupted the "D" 
> drive.  After reformatting the external drive, I copied all the files I 
> could to it then reformatted the D drive before resuming.
>
> I'm REALLY not sure why entire directories on the D drive would have 
> 'disappeared' when copying from it to the external drive.  I would have 
> thought that just "reading from" the drive, a power failure wouldn't 
> affect it any.
>
> If I read what you said below correctly, it appears that SATA drives are 
> MUCH slower than IDE drives, (about 33 or 66 times slower) at least 
> through their interfaces.  I thought they were faster.
>
> Again, thank you Aaron.
>
> Phil
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
>
> Philip,
>
> The media compatibility issue still exists, and is probably worse today 
> than it was a couple years ago.  As manufacturers need to make lower cost 
> media to compete, out goes quality.  You can find "quality" discs fairly 
> easily, but drive compatibility still needs to be tested.
>
> As to drives, I prefer Plextor and Pioneer drives.  A typical dual-layer 
> DVD writer costs about $50 these days.  The Plextor's are more expensive, 
> but they're typically considered the cream-of-the-crop.  LG makes decent 
> lightscribe drives, if you want lightscribe (LS).
>
> Is LS worth it?  Don't know - the media costs quite a bit more than even 
> ink-jet printable media.  Looks OK if you view it from an angle.  Wears 
> out the laser sooner though, if you think about it.  But for $50, you 
> could always buy another drive if it burns out.
>
> For "archival" quality backups, Mitsui makes "archival grade" media known 
> as MAM-A.  They use a 24K gold reflective layer and are scratch resistant. 
> You can find MAM-A via on-line media retailers.  Not cheap by DVD-R 
> standards - still over a buck each in bulk.  You can get more info about 
> MAM-A media here:
>
>  http://www.mam-a.com
>
>
> So, to answer your questions numerically:
>
> 1.  I generally recommend Pioneer or Plextor drives.  The current Pioneer 
> model is the DVR-112D and Plextor has two "800" series models.
>
> 2.  I'd install the new DVD-R drive on the "primary" IDE controller as a 
> "master".  Then I'd probably remove one of the CD-R drives and keep the 
> other on the secondary IDE controller as a "Master".  I currently have two 
> DVD-R drive in my system though I really never use both at the same time.
>
> 3.  Keep the external HDD on the Firewire port.  Yes, they are slower than 
> internal drives as the interface is slower than internal IDE/SATA.  1394a 
> (Firewire 400) is 400Mbps and USB 2.0 is 480Mbps max (bits per sec). 
> Don't let this fool you into believing that USB 2.0 is faster though...USB 
> has much more protocol overhead and the actual througput is higher with 
> 1394a. For reference, ATA/100 is 100MBps max (Bytes, not bits), SATA is 
> 1.5Mbps (bits), and SATA-II is 3Mbps (bits).  For the bits per sec rates, 
> just divide the bps rate by 10 (includes some overhead) to get the Bytes 
> per sec.
>
> 4.  Personal preference.
>
>
> 73,
>
>  - Aaron, NN6O
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