Sony Spressa 8x4x32 Internal SCSI CDRW Drive

by Sony

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004RJZG
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 4, 1999

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The Sony Spressa 8x4x32 Internal SCSI CDRW Drive is an SCSI-2 interface drive that provides 8x write speed for CD-Rs, 4x write speed for CD-RWs, and a maximum 32x read speed. This drive records all popular CD formats and includes Sony's CD Complete Pro software suite.

The Sony Spressa offers easy, flexible, and cost-effective data storage and distribution. Each disc holds up to 650 MB of data and can be read by any standard CD-ROM drive worldwide, making exchanging information easy.

In the box are the horizontally or vertically mountable Sony Spressa drive, Sony CD Complete Pro software, a blank CD-RW disc, a blank CD-R disc, SCSI connector cable, audio connector cable, mounting screws, four blank CD labels, two blank jewel case inserts and J-cards, a user manual and a quick start card. This drive is backed by a 12-month limited warranty.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Quality drive, Lame software, May 28, 2000

By 

A. Alkins - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sony Spressa 8x4x32 Internal SCSI CDRW Drive (Personal Computers)

Installation was fairly simple, even for people who don't know much about computers, the manual explains all that you need. The software was fairly easy to install (Although I wish I didn't have to).

This drive writes very well, I have been using it for more than a year now and I have had absolutely no problems (Hardware wise) But the big problem is with the software. It is totally disgusting. Besides the fact that it has a clunky interface, it crashes frequently, the readme files are hopeless and it lacks features. To top it off, you can't just run another CDR program because the software seems to be linked to the drivers. By the way, there is a way to overcome this as I have realised people saying how it was impossible to install third party program. Go to the sony site and find the area where you can download the new drivers, the entire drivers not the update. Install this and this alone (Make sure you have removed the original software first) and your good to go. The drivers are very very deep within the Sony support site, so good luck.

This drive is very durable, as it is Sony, but for anyone looking to buy a cdrw today, do not buy this drive, maybe the other models don't have the bundled software or look for an equivelant in another brand.

65 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sony Burner, March 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Sony Spressa 8x4x32 Internal SCSI CDRW Drive (Personal Computers)

The burner is working well so far. Can write a 74 minute cd from the hard drive in less than 8-9 minutes. The Sony CD Creator software is not very versatile, I would recommend purchasing another cd software (preferably Adaptec). You need to know how to install a SCSI Adapter Card in to a PCI slot in order to connect the burner. Some knowledge of hardware installation is definitely needed for SCSI products.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good burner; software works, has some quirks, November 11, 2000

By 

Bolot Kerimbaev (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sony Spressa 8x4x32 Internal SCSI CDRW Drive (Personal Computers)

As other reviewers have noted, there are some issues with this CD burner, most notably, with software and drivers (plus, installation - but that applies to all internal SCSI hardware). To its defense, this burner WORKS: if you use Windows 9x then you have driver support (didn't try on NT); if you want to duplicate CDs, software provides a straight-forward way to accomplish it.

Limitations of the software show when you are going beyond the trivial and try to accomplish more advanced tasks. The main problem is the interface, which stops being intuitive due to a large number of options available and spread around. It does provide some useful disk information - when you insert a disk, it tells you if it's new or has some sessions already recorded, plus available space in minutes and megabytes (simple, but I don't remember seeing this in Adaptec software).

I didn't have a coaster (yet) after burning almost a dozen CDs. One time I almost got a coaster (recording failed because hard drive couldn't keep up at 8x speed), but I was able to record on that same CD at a lower speed (of course, the failed recording session "ate" some portion of the disk).

Note to users of computers that are slower than the recommended hardware: I'm using this unit on a Pentium-166 and didn't have any problems (except that the hard drive is not fast enough for 8x speed recording). Of course, I was only using the CD-R/CD-RW portion of the software.

Bottom line: if you are comfortable installing hardware, already have a SCSI card, and you don't perform extremely sophisticated disk burns, this burner is a great deal. Plus, according to another reviewer, you can get drivers and buy other software (e.g., from Adaptec), in case you don't like what comes pre-packaged.