[damiensmunki]

Hi! So...I'd never heard of LaCie before I bought my Power Book, but these seem to be the external burners Apple pushes. I'm getting a DVD burner tomorrow, and I'm trying to decide between the LaCie and Plextor dual layer models. The LaCie comes with a complete copy of Toast 6, but it only has a 2 MB buffer. The Plextor comes with Toast 6 Lite, but it has an 8 MB buffer. If it matters, I'll be using whichever I get mostly making duplicate, travel copies of CD's I own. What are your opinions on these two companies and their products? Which would you recommend? Thanks so much!
Rob

[vasu]

LaCie doesn't actually make the burner in what they sell, they just take another burner (could be pioneer or sony or nec, etc) and put it in an enclosure they design and then sell it.

So it really matters what's in the enclosure, and sometimes they use more than one supplier, so it's hard to say outright who you're comparing against.

for what it's worth, plextor's are very solid and i think they make the best burners along with NEC and pioneer.

-vasu

[damiensmunki]

Thanks, vasu! I had no idea that LaCie didn't actually manufacture their own burners. I will not be purchasing from LaCie. So...if it isn't obvious, I haven't gotten a DVD burner yet. I'm leaning towards the Plextor. Does anyone have any advice? Another you'd recommend? Thoughts on the Plextor? Thanks!
Rob

[Luca Rescigno]

Plextor's DVD burners tend to be very overpriced. I think LaCie isn't that bad. If you really want to see a good selection of DVD burners, go to NewEgg's CD and DVD burner section. The search fields to the left will let you narrow it down.

It seems like Plextor's actual drives are $100 and up, for a 12x rather than a 16x. They were the first company to hit 12x, but just a couple months later, all the other companies hit 16x and Plextor is still behind. While I have heard good things about Plextor, you're paying quite a premium.

Pioneer is a good brand. Apple uses their drives so you're pretty much guaranteed full OS X support for a long time into the future. The DVR-108 model is about $80 and burns DVD-Rs and DVD+Rs at 16x. It also writes dual layer DVD+R discs at 4x.

Remember that an external DVD burner is just the drive plus an external case, so you'll have to add the cost of a Firewire or a USB 2.0 case and compare that to what a standalone external burner would cost you. If you go to NewEgg's "Shop By Category" view and choose "External Enclosure," you'll be able to narrow it down to only external cases that work with your DVD burner. All you need is one that is 5.25" wide and connects via Firewire or USB 2.0. USB 2.0 should be cheaper, but Firewire is better supported on the Mac. I think you can start up your computer from a CD in an external Firewire CD drive, but doing the same from a USB 2.0 one doesn't work.