Wondering if there was a consensus as to which mfg. CDRW works best for transferring pictures to Cd-roms? Or is it the software which comes with these different brands which makes the difference? Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated. I was thinking about an Hewlett Packard 8200i which is a 4x4x24 type. There's so many brands out now it's kind of overwhelming.

Sincerely, ltw

-- Larry Whitt (t_whitt@yahoo.com), September 25, 1999

Answers

I'm not sure that 'pictures' have any special requirements. OK, the files are large, so you might be more bothered about slow speeds. I needed a cheap parallel port model, and got the HP 7510e (2x2x24). It works fine under Win95, but stops my Win NT system from booting, even with a newly-downloaded driver. The software is a rather confusing, possibly just the result of all the different formats that are possible, but it does allow me to use RW CDs as large floppies, for example.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), September 26, 1999.

The HP drives are consistently good quality and reliable. The 8200i you mentioned is the newest in the series. PC Magazine has a review of CD-RW drives, results with links to more detail are at:

http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,397028,00.html

The Imation "Super Recorder 4x4x20" is another great drive, for under $200, which received excellent reviews. See

http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,408939,00.html

The Imation 4x4x20 (for IDE interface) and Yamaha 4416 (for SCSI) are both fast, reliable drives. The Imation includes a great software bundle: Adaptec Easy CD, DirectCD, CD Copier, Seagate Backup Exec, and Tracer Tech's DC-Art Diamond Cut for enhanced audio CD recording.

An important feature to look at is the onboard memory buffer size. CD-RW drives "buffer" information about to be written in onboard memory to avoid running out of data that it needs to write -- a "buffer overrun" which would ruin a normal CD-R disk. For 4X writing speed a 2MB buffer is good; this is the buffer size on the Imation, Yamaha, HP8200i, and many other current 4X drives. For 2X writers, 1MB is a usuable buffer size.

Usage hint: in Windows disable programs that might interrupt your computer during CD writing. The "Fast Find" feature in Microsoft Office, which periodically scans your disk to generate a file cache, has toasted many CDs. Disable it from the control panel or (better still) don't install it at all (you can uninstall it using the Office Setup program -- your PC will be much faster without it). Background virus checkers can also cause problems.

If you're considering an external model, USB is slightly faster than parallel port models and easier to setup if you have Windows 98. For laptops, a USB drive is a great solution. Both parallel port and USB models can record at up with 4X write speed, but the fastest that they can read CDs is around 5-6X, so internal drives have a great speed advantage for reading.

Hope this helps,

-- James Brucker (brucker@ee.ucla.edu), October 02, 1999.