Customer Reviews

Yamaha 8x4x24 Internal IDE CDRW Drive

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this CDRW about 3 weeks ago and I am very satisfied with what I have seen so far. Previously I owned a 2-2-8 burner by Memorex. This drive is so much faster, especially with 8X CD-R recording.

According to the previous review, he/she said this drive does not support Disc-At-Once recording. Well, this drive definitely does so I dont know what that person is talking about.

Initially when I installed this drive, Win 98 had problems with it, but it is not the drive's fault. I fully recommend this drive, especially since the price is very decent. Also, I dont think 12X is really needed since 8X is quite fast already. It only takes 9 minutes for a full CD! I think that speaks for itself.

P.S. - The adaptec software kinda ( ) since it is too simple. I recommend NERO BURNING ROM.

I was initally impressed by the write speed of this drive. But after some more use, I realized that this drive was extremely susceptible to buffer underuns. I couldn't even open up a program while burning or it would fail. I used to own an HP 8250i that basically behaved like a scsi burner, I could have multiple applications open at once with no problem. However, with the Yamaha, I can't even play an mp3 while burning. Addtionally, the drive indeed does not support RAW sector writing, sometimes known as disc-at-once recording. This is different from the normal definition of DAO which it does support. If you don't mind leaving your computer alone while burning, then this drive will be fine, but if you want use other apps while burning, then you're better off getting something else.

The included software for Mac is very disappointing, especially since far more is promised than included. However, for what I want to do with it (backups and occasional easy CDs), it's a great drive, cheap and fast. If you have a Mac and want to cut CDs, you really need a big hard drive to read off... don't try CD -> CD on this drive, the Mac IDE controller will choke. If you want to do that, spend the extra money and get SCSI.

This drive is pretty damn fast when it comes to recording. The read speed however, is quite slow for a modern cd drive. The drive is also rather new so some software programs have trouble recognizing it. However, the biggest problem is that it does not currently support RAW data recording or DAO (disc at once). Yamaha states that it "may" add DAO in an upgraded firmware revision sometime in the future.

Had this thing for years and finally died after 4 years and after writing hundreds or perhaps a thousand CDRs. Wished it last longer till I get a new computer with a built-in CDRW drive.

I will say I am a little bit lucky coz I never meet the problems mentioned as above, except a small bug during the installation while I fixed it readly. This burner, compared with HP9150i, is much more quieter and smoother. The writing speed seems faster than other 8x burner, (i.g. HP8250i, plextor). So far, I burned 0 coaster of 19 CDR. Well, it perhaps has buffer deficiency, if any. The burnings make my PIII/128Mb to P166pro.....The reading is 24X, but nonsense for me even if it were 2X or 4x. I have a DVD for reading..

Anyway, recommended!

When I tried to burn a CD with the max. number of songs (74 minutes), the first two songs were recorded, but then it just stopped recording. The computer also froze after a while, because I was waiting to see if it would resume recording. After many frustrating attempts at recording, and then restarting my computer I am ready to return this to the store.