[DigitalEl]

I'm looking for a dirt cheap CD-RW for burning music and data. I have no experience with the devices, so any advice is appreciated. I don't care how big and/or noisy the thing is. That's not an issue for me. The number one deciding factor will be price.

I'm looking for the cheapest way to move large amounts of data from my old iMac DVSE to a new 2002 iMac. Is a CD-RW even the way to go?

Doing it online is not an option. I use dial-up.

Thx.

[Giles Booth]

The cheapest, fastest, easiest way to move data between your two iMacs would surely be to get a short Ethernet lead, hook the two ethernet ports up to each other, turn on file sharing and off you go - mount the hard drive of one iMac on the desktop of the other.

I'm not sure if you need a crossover lead or not - certainly the dual USB iBooks autodetect and you can use a regular network cable - I have happily transferred files from my 233 Bondi Blue iMac running OS8.6 to my dual USB iBook running OS9.1 - seemed to help to rename the hard disk on my iBook to something other than 'Macintosh HD'... but easy enough.

[Kestral]

I too am looking for a good deal on a 16x Firewire external CDRW for my IceBook. Anyone have any good suggestions?

[Giles Booth]

I have the LaCie 16x external firewire CD-RW... geberally happy with it, no coasters yet. I use it with OS 9.1 and OSx.1 - ToastLite only runs in 9 I think

- No coasters yet, tho' some audio CDs I burnt skip in a cruddy old portable CD player... no idea if this is because the CD player is too old or because I burnt the CDs too fast
- It's very big, very very big. (and sturdy!) And has a slightly noisy fan which might annoy some - I turn it off when I'm not using it, though
- It's not bus powered
- iTunes doesn't recognise it, even though Apple's iTunes web page says it will work with it. The workaround from www.ituneshelper.com does work in OS9.1, though, so I can burn audio CDs from iTunes. Proper iTunes support is promised for later this year.
- there are some issues with driver conflicts, well documented in the software that shipped with my unit
- worked first time when I bought it, plugged it in and burnt a disc straight from the Finder in OS X without installing any drivers
- ToastLite ships with it and does the basic job

[rjc3]

The fastest and most convenient way to transfer the data from your DVSE would be through Target Disk Mode using a fire wire cable. This is a really cool but not very well known feature of Apple computers. Get a 6-pin to 6-pin firewire cable (it pays to shop around for something like this - prices vary wildly). Plug one end into your DVSE and then plug it in to your new imac's firewire port. Your new iMac should be turned on while you do this, but your DVSE needs to be off at this point. Then Start your DVSE while holding down the "t" key until the firewire screen appears in 5 seconds. Then your DVSE hard drive will appear on your new iMac's desktop and you can just drag all your DVSE stuff right to your new drive.

Although a firewire cable is probably 2-3X the cost of a ethernet crossover cable, it has the advantage of being about a kazillion times faster than ethernet, which really isn't practical to move multiple GBs around with. Also, there is no network to configure, nor file sharing to enable, making it simple, powerful and elegant.

If you still want a CDRW, I think it is a mistake to only consider price in your purchase. Drive quality, in my experience, varies with different manufacturors, and is among the more important factors in evaluating a drive. . yamaha drives, while generally among the more expensive brands, are in my experience the most reliable & cost efficient cd-rws in the long run, and I always buy them even on my very limited student budget.. because they have an 8mb buffer (compared with 2 in almost every other brand), you rarely, if ever, get coasters or buffer underrun errors. I guarantee you will burn a lot more bad cds on "bargain" brands than you will on most name brand "premium" (Que, Yamaha, etc.) drives.

Cheers.

[ 01-22-2002: Message edited by: rjc3 ]

[Màlum]

Originally posted by Kestral:
<STRONG>I too am looking for a good deal on a 16x Firewire external CDRW for my IceBook. Anyone have any good suggestions?</STRONG>

Lucent has a nice 16x firewire cdrw comming. $349

[edddeduck]

If you can get them next to each other (even for a few hours) by a ethernet cable for £5 (approx $5 at most). Make sure it is "crossover" cable at this is the type you need for a direct connection. If in doupt ask when buying it.

Cheers Edd

[crumble]

I can just give qou the recommendation not to buy a Iomega CD-RW they are mug.
I have the Predator and right now I am waiting for the exchange drive (it returned 20 coasters or so). When I hold it in my hands, I will put it on ebay fist thing.
I thought of buyinga Lacie now because I have read some very good tests but will consider a Yamaha now (8 MB buffer is HUGE)

[Adam E]

I've had a Que Fire 12x10x32 CD-RW for about 6 months now. No coasters, plenty fast, and it matches my graphite iMac. If you don't have a graphite iMac, it would be ugly as sin and too big.

[G4ME]

Lucent has a nice 16x firewire cdrw comming. $349

That is rather expensive, LaCie just put out a 32X for only 269,

If price is a probelm check out Dealnn.com, right now they have a fire wire 12x8x32 sony supressa for only 80 bucks.

If all you need to do is transfere files then you should use the firewire.

[tsheley]

I just bought a Lite-On 24x10x40 CDRW from Newegg ($80) and a Firewire Kit from OWC ($89) today. Out the door the whole thing cost $180. Not to bad. I saw on xlr8yourmac.com that these drives work great. I will find out next week.

[HouseSold]

Burning as we speak on a 24x10x40 Firewire from Cool Drives here: http://www.caldrives.com/Merchant2/m...41040sanyo-pci

For $189 I have yet to see anything resembling a coaster from it.

iTunes compatible, plug and play complete with cable and FREE PCI firewire card, should you want to use it on a tower or G3 beige or 'other' computer.

Toast works excellent also with this drive. Quiet Sanyo mechanism.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally posted by tsheley:
<STRONG>I just bought a Lite-On 24x10x40 CDRW from Newegg ($80) and a Firewire Kit from OWC ($89) today. Out the door the whole thing cost $180. Not to bad. I saw on xlr8yourmac.com that these drives work great. I will find out next week.</STRONG>

LiteOn makes great CD-RWs and they are generally cheaper (cost wise) than other makes. The 24x10x40 drive is a seriously nice drive. I have one, and have sold several of them to various people. Not a coaster yet. Currently they have a 32x burner out.

One nice thing about LiteOn mechs- try turning the entire Firewire drive on it's side, stick a CD in the tray, close it, and notice it burns a perfect disk no matter which way it's oriented, flat or on it's side. I'm not sure what other drive mechs provide a slotted tray that allows this, but I was pleasantly surprized when I found out LiteOn did. It's expecially nice to have full orientation-independance if you prefer your external drives to take up less space, on a desk shelf out of the way, as I do.