Customer Reviews

Yamaha CRW2100FXZ 16x10x40 External FireWire CD-RW Kit

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

 

 

This unit is blazingly fast, but when reading disks at full speed the noise makes it seem like it's about to take off. Works flawlessly with toast on the mac and itunes. Doesn't have burn-proof, but so far it hasn't been a problem because of the big 8mb cache. I've read that it doesn't truly support the 10x RW, but I only use CDR. The firewire interface is wonderful, and it is definitely the future of CDR.

I have nothing but great things to say about Yamaha's CRW2100FXZ. I was looking for a CD-RW drive that would give me the speed and dependability I needed to burn digital video onto a CD. That's what the CRW2100FXZ gave me. I read the other reviews about this product and I do have to agree with the comments about the noise of the unit. A little on the loud side when playing back a CD at 40X. But don't let that stop you from buying this unit. After opening the unit, I read the instruction booklet (which by the way is written well for both PC and MAC users). After reading the booklet, the install was quick and easy. I was burning my first disc within 20min. The only item that I wish Yamaha would have been more generous on was the Toast software. The unit comes with the basic Toast software. At least they could have given us a discount to upgrade. The only other odd thing is that when I received the unit, the model number seems to have changed. It's now the CRW2100-IX, which is strange since all of Yamaha's info says that it is a CRW2100fxz. Overall, if your looking for a fast, reliable, cost-effective CD-RW drive, this is the one to get.

When you order this product take note of other's complaints in regards to the software that comes with this product...comes with one of the most frustrating programs that required mutiple downloads to upgrade and ultimately did not work...so purchase different software or you will be in for lots of frustration and disppointment.

Mine is connected through a PCI OrangeMicro Firewire/USB card. I use it with the latest version (5.0.1) of Roxio (Toast) Titanium software. The CDRW burns at fast speeds (x16, x14, x12, etc.) without problems, but when it comes to verfication, the software ALWAYS gives me "Error" messages. I've checked all the burnt CDs and they don't seem to have problems. I tried to use the CDRW with the bundled Toast software (4.1.2) and seldom got "Error" messages in verification.... They report that the Toast Titamium may have some compatibility issues with CRW2100FXZ since Yamaha has changed its recent firmware. They also say that Roxio and Yamaha have been working on these issues. I've upgraded my CDRW to the latest firmware (1.0n). I contacted Yamaha, and they told me to turn off unnecessary extentions--including Firewire Authoring Support and USB Authoring Support. I tried their suggestion but got the same results. My problem may be an isolated case because I'm using OS 8.6 with Firewire 2.5, which comes with OS 9.1; this may be causing the error problems in verification. I'm not sure. Or there may be someone else out there who is having the same or similar problems with CRW2100FXZ under Roxio Titanium 5.0.1. It's a little annoying that CRW2100FXZ, one of the latest (and of the best) Yamaha burners, seem to have compatibility issues with the latest version of the Toast (Mac).

This is a follow-up on my review dated 8/12/01. Since that time, I have replaced the old FireWire PCI card with a new one (made by a different manufacturer) and have upgraded Titanium Toast (Mac) to the latest version of 5.0.2. I'm happy to report that the problem of verification failure that I had experienced before has been eliminated. Now everything works fine with my CR2100FXZ under Titanium Toast 5.0.2. I don't know if it's the new card or the 5.0.2 updater (or a combination of both), but to be fair with Yamaha and Roxio, I'm changing my rating from 3 stars to 4 stars. Why 4 stars instead of full 5 stars? The Yamaha CRW has that loud noise (like a jet plane taking off) when playing back a CD. Otherwise, it's a fast and great CDW!

I bought this product after a failure of an old SCSI based CD/RW drive from Yamaha (4x4x16). I attached it to an Adaptec firewire card, O/S Windows 2000/Server, Pentium Xeon III dual processor, 384 MB RAM. I had a 4.0 version of Easy CD Creator and Direct CD installed but CD creator refused to see drive. I uninstalled the existing 4.0 Easy CD Creator, and installed the new 4.0 Easy CD Creator from the CD in the Yamaha box and its worked like a dream since. I use it to store music, do backups etc. It makes a bit of noise at 40x for reads, but other than that its working like a charm! 2000 now has no problems accessing it ... (thanks adaptec for making such a mess of you software installations)!

I connected mine through an Orange Micro firewire/usb2 card. Worked right away, burns amazingly fast and the 8 MB buffer virtually elimates buffer underruns.

It's broken after very little use... the Yamaha support said we're better off buying a new one... very disappointing!

I've had this burner for about 5-6 months now, and have not been disappointed yet. It's extremely fast with firewire, and setup was a breeze. It also comes with some nice programs including Nero.

This review is for a Yamaha CD burner on a Mac... SEE THE LAST PARAGRAPH FOR EXTENSION CONFLICTS...

I give this machine 5 stars because of the burners with which I have firsthand experience, this one is hands down the best. I crossed my fingers, hoping the speed numbers would hold up in real-world use, and it's true: I can write a 650mb data disk in around 4 minutes. I don't have to restart or optimize my hard drive to burn at max speed (16x). It does make a bit of noise but that's when mounting/reading a disc at 40x. The noise is not terribly distracting and it doesn't sound like the machine is coming apart; only that the mechanism is really building up some RPMs.

I can use this burner as a reader too... The only way I could get my Sony Spressa to burn a cd at all (with no reliability--that machine made its share of "coasters") was to disable most extensions. That meant restarting with the burn-cd extension set, then restart with the standard extension set and read the cd in the internal drive.

This drive ships with a version of Toast, which conflicts with iTunes. If you want to use iTunes, which does a good job of burning music cds but runs some sort of "compiling" routine first, which doubles your burn time, you must disable Toast in your extensions manager, and vice-versa.

TO MAKE THIS MACHINE OPERATE correctly on your Mac, you must open your Extensions Manager control panel and disable the following:

--iTunes (everything--at the top of the window, click on the column header "PACKAGE" to group all of the iTunes things together)

--Firewire Authoring Support --USB Authoring Support

You're welcome. This information is not on either the Yamaha or the Roxio (Toast) website.

UPDATE: MacOS 9, iTunes 2, Toast and iTunes can now be installed at the same time. iTunes still won't burn with Toast installed, but I like Toast for burning better, anyway.