Customer Reviews

TDK AI401248 40x12x48 CD-RW Drive

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've owned 5 CD burners, three of which lasted less than two weeks. Those three were 'bargain' brands, which led me to finally invest in this one, which I had heard was one of the two best ones available (the other one being the Plextor Plexwriter). Well let me just say I'm not sorry I went with the TDK. For reference, my system is a self-built AMD Athlon 1.2 ghz. with 256 megs of ram and Windows 98. I am using it in conjunction with a Creative 52X CD drive. I installed each on a separate IDE channel and the first thing I did after installation was do a 12X Music CD copy directly from the Creative to the TDK using a Maxell 80 minute CD-R Music CD. This burner flies! I didn't time it, but I left the room for a couple minutes and when I returned, it had already finished! I was skeptical, so I took my newly burned CD out to my stereo and it played absolutely perfectly from beginning to end. It was indistinguishable from the original. Installation was easy and I never once looked at the manual, although if you've never installed one before, the manual appears to be complete and should get you through okay.

The burner's blue tray adds a subtle beauty to my system and really makes it look pro-built. It comes with great software too, including Ahead Nero 5.5, TDK Digital MixMaster, InCD CD-RW Packet Writing Software, and Adobe ActiveShare. Nero, while not quite as user-friendly as some others, is the most complete set of tools I've seen come with a burner, and is fairly self-explanatory once you've fooled with it for a bit. And of course the TDK also comes with Buffer Underrun Protection. I can't think of a thing that would cause me not to recommend this fine product. It's super-fast, well-built, reliable, easy to install, and easy to look at. If you want professional results, this is the one to get.

The velo-cd series of cd writers by TDK has consistently proven itself as a winner in the market. I've purchased (for either my own use or in building PCs for educational institutions and friends) well over twenty different cd writers over the course of three years and can easily say TDK is the best out there. Not only does this one write at 40x, but it also includes burn-proof technology (which is quickly becoming an industry standard), which if you don't know is a buffer-underun prevention mechanism which ensures your burns almost always succeed, even if the read buffer is used up. It also utilizes Nero software, which is superior to Roxio Easy CD Creator in every aspect imaginable (including such goodness as drag-n-drop mp3 burning for beginning users, as well as hundreds of options for more experienced users).

Beginning customers should be aware of several things, however, when purchasing cd writers. First of all, a computer without sufficient RAM will not burn at 40x, no matter how much you want it to. Do not expect this burner to perform consistently at 40x without 512 mb of RAM. Also, be aware of the CD-R media you buy: cheaper brands & cheaper quality media cannot necessarily be used at 40x speed, even if the packaging says it supports the speed. Use TDK media, which tends to be both affordable and reliable, or other brand-name media (and not, for example, the bulk CD-Rs produced by CompUSA).

I encountered no driver, IRQ, or other conflicts while installing and using this product. It worked right out of the box, and as the drivers install with the software, I did not need tech-support's help to get it running properly.

i bought this burner with the highest expectations. I've had a plexwriter, a QPS, an HP before this, so i've had experience with high end brand-name burners. I had purchased the QPS Que 40x and returned it the same day after reading the high/positive ratings the TDK received. After installing it, i was nothing but disappointed. it wouldn't burn a cd faster than 10 minutes, with almost a 100 buffer-underruns each time. It hung my system, w/c by the way is a brand new dell - 2ghz, win 2k, 512 ram, 80gb hdd. after plenty of analysis, trips to the website and coasters, i finally called the tech support 800 #. they were great (except for a rude comment i heard the tech make when he thought i wasn't listening), very patient and helpful - w/c eventually led to us figuring out that this burner does not work with Zone Alarm's Firewall. (why, i don't know) It also needs to be configured for DMA and running the updated nero/wnaspi.dll/firmware, etc. it works great now - i'm a DJ - so i do lots of successive burns and get lots of use out of my burner. after giving me atleast 30 bad cd's in the first week, its now working like a charm - not a coaster in sight and blazing speeds. Can't recommend this burner higher than a 3 because of all the setup/initial problems - but i can tell u that once all the kinks are worked out, its a beauty!!

I visited Amazon.com about 5 times before I finally clicked the "one click purchase" button and bought the TDK CDRW 40x...but I'm glad I did!

Installation was very easy into my Dell Dimension 700mhz desktop. I was a bit concerned initially about the front face plate of the TDK not fitting flush with the case, but a little push on the case and it went right in. I cabled it up as the master with my existing Dell CD reader as the slave. All factory settings and jumpers were adequate and correct for the installation (no adjustments needed).

First burn was a data archive using the 80min/700mb media that came with the unit. 475mb of all types of data wrote in 4 minutes! That would have taken over 30 minutes on my old unit. Good diagnostics and reporting followed a quick verification of writing.

...I'm sure the PlexWriter is just as good of a unit, but I'm happy and ahead in the cash department.

I installed it myself. The instructions were clear. The technicians at work told me it was easy to do, and following the instructions it was. I called a tdk technican just to ask a few questions. He answered my questions and I turned it on and it worked. Love it. Eileen Szatmari. If I can do it anyone can

I bought this burner to replace my old 16X burner which was also TDK. I decided to go with TDK again. After I opened the box and read the instructions I installed this with no problems at all (the only thing that might give you a problem are the jumpers). TDK included everything you would need plus more. They even included two CD-Rs and a CD-RW along with a marker to label your cds. The performance is great. I can burn a full 700 MB CD in under 3 minutes now. Great value and performance overall.

This is the third CD-Recorder that I've owned, and it is also the BEST CD-Recorder that I've owned. I just received this little bad boy last night and it immediately replaced my Yamaha CD-RW 16x10x40. Setup was fairly simple. The CD-RW came complete with IDE cable, mount screws, Nero 5.5, and instructions.

My very first recording session was successful. I burned a 480MB CD in 2Min:31sec with no errors, no corrupted files, just a perfect CD burn. This thing SHREDS!!

I've heard that Plextor makes an awesome product too, but I've never used one, so I can't make any claims.

The bottom-line: The TDK VeloCD is an AWESOME writer at a KILLER price. Buy it! You won't regret it. I can't wait to go home and burn some more CD's. Thanks TDK!

When I first installed this burner, it worked great, but after about 10 months, it has deteriorated in quality to the point where it is almost dead. It burns coasters about 75% of the time, and when it does work, it usually burns at about 12x max. Of course the warranty ended right when the problems started occurring, and tech support was absolutely awful. Stay away from this unit unless you don't mind buying a new one every year.

I've learned that it's important to read All the tips and FAQ's that are out on the Internet (TDK's and Nero's websites are especially helpful) regarding the use of this TDK CD Burner. Doing so will help you to prevent the making of Coasters, AKA: non-usable discs. I use the Nero CD burning program which comes with the software CD. Make sure to update it regularly. Also, you'll want to make sure to go to TDK's website & download & install any new software versions from TDK. Updating the "Firmware" this CD Burner uses also helps, but follow TDK's directions Carefully otherwise you can royally Mess up your drive! This Burner definitely works better for me when I use TDK CD-R's when making VCD's. I get a few coasters out of 50 CD-R's if I use another (Cheaper) brand when making VCD's. A tip: when burning a VCD, burn at only 4X speed, No faster than 4X because some VCD players have problems reading the VCD if burned at higher speeds. This is the first CD Burner I've bought and I would buy a TDK again.

I was very impressed with the speed of this CD-ROM burner. When I first tried it I copied from one CD drive to another, and I didn't see a lot of improvement. Don't make the same mistake unless your source drive is fast as well. Then I used the TDK for both the source and the destination. Wow! The source CD was 317 MB of mixed media and it was complete in under 3 minutes. I would recomend this CD-ROM burner if you are looking to upgrade your ATAPI CD-RW.