[Applefreak01]

Hi everyone. My brother and I want to buy a USB CD-RW drive for our family's iMac (Rev.A) and my iBook (Rev.B). I was wondering what USB CD-RW drive works the best. I'm thinking about the new Zip CD USB CD-RW, but I'm not sure as some readers are posting problems with using USB CD-RW's. Please help us. Thank you.

[TheGreatButcher]

grrr sorry to hear you have a firewireless iMac. USB is not great for devices like CD-RW, so you're basically taking your chances. I'm getting the QPS Firewire CD-RW

[omarv]

well I have a QPS firewire drive and it has been perfect out of the box, I recommend qps to everyone looking for a cd burner, if that helps. A friend of mine has the sony spressa which works fine but the software that comes with it is not as good as te toast 4.1 that comes with the qps.

[Cipher13]

From what I hear qps are good, but from personal experience I can say Yamaha rock.
Yeah, damn shame about USB only - it really sucks.

Cipher13

Originally posted by TheGreatButcher:
grrr sorry to hear you have a firewireless iMac. USB is not great for devices like CD-RW, so you're basically taking your chances. I'm getting the QPS Firewire CD-RW

I always thought/understood due to the most part that CD-R's are fairly slow to begin with, the difference of firewire is almost not worth it...



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• -Bobby
  <http://www.torgo.org/>

[Trapper]

Here's my 2�: I have the ZipCD USB CDRW, and it works fine for me. I upgraded to the full version of Toast, rather than use that sucky version that comes with the drive, and I've been very happy. I've had relatively few coasters, and most have been due to my errors, not the drive's. Furthermore, I don't think USB sucks nearly as much as everyone in here is claiming it does. No doubt that firewire is faster, but I can live with the 4x speed of USB. Of course, it's easier to justify to yourself the additional expense of a Firewire drive if you first convince yourself that USB is a horrible technology for data transfer and is, thus, impossible to work with. However, speaking for those of us without Firewire Macs: quit pissing on our picnic!! USB CDRWs may not be the absolute best on the market, but they can and do work flawlessly if a person takes the time to figure out how to use them properly. So Applefreak01: go ahead and buy the drive you settle on, and don't let these guys in here make you feel bad that your computer isn't as new as there's. Bullys.

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Travis Hreno
Department of Philosophy
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario
CANADA
[email protected]

I have a QPS Que CDRW on my iMac rev B. It works great. But, USB cannot handle 4X for sustained periods of time. I only burn CDRs at 4X if its a small session under 100 megs. good luck. I also heard the Spressa is a good drive.

I have a Rev c 266 mhz iMac. I use a USB QPS drive with no issues. Just make sure that you follow the instructions for setting the cache in Toast, and don't try to burn audio CD's faster than 2X. Everything else burns all day long at 4X. I'd stay clear of a Sony drive unless they are now bundling Toast with it. The Discribe program they originally came with blows.

I use a Que! USB also on both a Bondi iMac, iBook SE and PB400FW with great success. Make no mistake, firewire is faster, but for flexibility and price, USB won my vote. 2X is all you're going to reliably get for audio, but that's the only caveat worth noting.

May want to wait for the newly announced Zip external CDRW to hit the street. I work for the ID firm that did the work and they are smaller and just as sleek, if not more so.

Steer clear of the Sony. I haven't met a single person who has one and likes it.

I don't have an iMac but I do have a bronze G3 PB and a G4 (Yikes) desktop.

My LaCie CDRW drive works just fine with these (and with my PeeCee as well --ARRRFFF) even at 4X burns so long as it is the only device (except for keyboard and mouse) on the USB bus. If you use it at high write speeds as one of several devices on the USB bus, be prepared to burn a lot of coasters.

Only problem is that the LaCie drive came with Toast 3.5 for USB and therefore will not mount on the desktop (at least not under OS 8.6 --dunno about 9.0x). Apparently the drive uses Toast's drivers to mount and v 3.5 doesn't support USB mounting on a Mac desktop. Is is my understanding that this has been resolved in Toast 4 but I don't have firsthand knowledge to be certain.

The advantage to a USB drive for cross-platform use is that PeeCees running Win98 or higher automagically support USB, so it's a snap to move from machine-to-machine, even cross platform)even hot-swapping. Firewire should do the same but only on the minority of PeeCees and older Macs that actually have firewire.

So, if you have more than one Mac (or plan to get another one) \and/or a mix of Macs and PCs, USB might actually be a better solution for you than firewire--at least for the time being.

Marian

Marian

[mcapehart]

I picked up a Western Digital CD-RW USB for my iBook(Rev A), and have had no problems. The drive itself is a Mitsumi, and I got it for 179$. Not a bad deal. Burns at 4x all the time, never burned a coaster yet.

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-------------------------
The Man, the Myth, the something or other.

[ndpatel]

i've got a spressa usb plus, which is supposedly a 4x/4x/2x read/write/rewrite drive, and i can say that as soon as you chuck discribe for toast, the drive works like a charm. i've burned ISO, audio, HFS, and volumes--even the mythical ISO/HFS+ hybrid disc, and it all works fine, even at 4x. (well, not the hybrid disc--that only works at 2x--BUT--that's true with the SCSI burner at work as well.)

so if you've got toast lying around, i say go for the spressa. it's fast and reliable, and if you ever upgrade to something with firewire, you haven't really been wasted any money. the drive will still work, and if you decide you really really need the speed of firewire, you can just buy one of those nifty pyro firewire drive boxes and transplant the sony drive into there. toast will still work and be happy.

--nilay

I have recently purchased an Archos drive, the MiniCDRW 4x4x24x, and it's really quite a spiffy piece of hardware. It cost just shy of $300, which ain't bad at all, and is available in both USB and FireWire versions (along with several other variants such as a PCMCIA card which are only PC complicant as far as I know). There are a few little quirks (the locking mechanism of the drive takes a little getting used to, lol) but it has worked quite well, and burns discs much more reliably than the old burner i had (which was definitely showing its age after four or five years, lol). If anyone buys one though, a brief note: Plug in the power first before plugging it into the iBook! Otherwise it kinda half-turns-on and gets confused and you have to unpower it. Other than that, it's a wonderfully small and light drive (about the size of a portable CD player, really spiffy) and pretty too.. compliments the iBook and the Pele Apollo II speakers quite well. Best of luck in looking for a CDRW drive that supports USB, i would definitely recommend the Archos MiniCDRW 4x4x24, it's fun.

-george henry ([email protected])

I've got a Sony Spressa Plus USB. Some say it's a bad drive. That's crap! Along with Toast and Astarte CDCopy you can backup/make any CDs you want. I've even copied PSX disks at 4X. The only problem the Spressa has is copying Audio CDs at 4X. Gotta do it at 2X. Who cares? Works great. You can pick up a re-manufactured Spressa Plus from Sony for about $130.00 (full warranty). This justifies getting Toast 4.1 for it. USB might be fast but the drives cost more and high speed CD-R/RW drives cost big dollars.
-joe-


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iMac (Lime 266 OS 9), iBook (Tangerine 300 OS 9), SE/30 (Platinum 16 OS 7.5.5)

Sorry about that last post. I meant to say "Firewire might be fast...", not "USB might be fast..."
-joe-


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iMac (Lime 266 OS 9), iBook (Tangerine 300 OS 9), SE/30 (Platinum 16 OS 7.5.5)

Sorry that you have no firewire...I have burned over 10 custom Audio CD's full of music at 8X on my QPS firewire drive and I have made no coasters...firewire is real people, it is fast and doesn't screw up. Since you are "limited" to USB, go with either the QPS USB drive and make sure you get all updates then 4x burns will work fine or go woth the zip CD drive and again update. Don't go with the Sony drives because they come with the worst software called discribe. I have used the QPS and a tester friend of mine also said it was good but he told me to get the firewire...I heard some good things about the zip also so it is a tossup...

I have the LaCie 4x4x24x USB CD-RW. Given the many bad reports on USB CD-RWs I was very skeptic about the 4x capability but so far it has worked flawlessly at 4x with Toast 4.0.2 with every kind of data files except direct audio CDs. I use it on a rev. A iMac with 96MB RAM and MacOS 8.6 .
Max

[Applefreak01]

Thanks everyone, we've decided to buy the ZipCD. And I think that firewire is better anyway. At school we have a G4 500 with a firewire CD-RW and so far it's been working fine.

[SupahCoolX]

just in case anyone else that wants to buy a CDR stumbles upon this forum.. i have the USB ZipCD for my iBook, and it's worked fine for burning audio and data at 4x.. i even burned 79 mins. of audio on one of those 80min/700mb CDR discs at 4x with no problem.. only problems i've had are with toast, but the drive works fine

USB will never burn faster than 4x because the usb bus can't maintain the data rate necessary to complete a higher speed burn.

Get a LaCie USB CDRW. Lacie uses the plextor mechanism and Plextor is the very best in the business (warning they are not the cheapest) MacGurus.com will only sell Plextor cdroms & burners because they are the best! You should check out Macgurus.com just to experience the attitude they have. Anyway you will have to get the LaCie elsewhere (like lacie.com) if you want one

I am not affiliated with any company mentioned here I am just a very satisfied Plextor (repeat) customer.

[runningdog]

i concur with SupahCoolX, i've also been able to burn at 4X for both data and audio. i have a Rev. A iMac, OS 9.0.4 and a 30Gb HD (with a 2Mb cache.) i've never had a problem sending data to the drive - testing the bandwidth and simulations have all gone okay. But the ZipCD did automatically downshift to 2X burning when i used cheaper CD-R media. But the drive loves Kodak Gold CD-Rs.

Toast 4.0.2 would only allow me to burn at 2X. But Toast 4.1 burns at 4X.

i have had two coasters but have yet to find the culprit. Both times the drive and software 'lost' each other - Toast reported that the connection to the drive was lost after i had already burned 2 discs without problems. i'm guessing it might be a recent extension conflict from SoundJam.

[Todd Dixon]

As a consultant/retailer I have found all USB solutions so-so until Toast 4.1. Then voila, perfect funtionality. USB is fine in the 4x category because who can print and burn at the same time even if you wanted to? The 12Mb/s isn't chewed up by anthing else. It was always a mixture of Apple's raw USB drivers and unadapted Adaptec software (no pun of course) that caused problems. Both seem remedied now.

Regarding the Archos MiniCDRW 4x4x24x, is the drive both USB and Firewire capable? I think I read somewhere that you only needed different cables to use it on either USB or Firewire. Just wanted to know if this is true. If so, I would think that this would be the ideal drive for someone like me who has a rev A iMac, but will eventually get a Mac with Firewire capability in the future.

Originally posted by Steeev:
I have a QPS Que CDRW on my iMac rev B. It works great. But, USB cannot handle 4X for sustained periods of time. I only burn CDRs at 4X if its a small session under 100 megs. good luck. I also heard the Spressa is a good drive.

... i have one iBook rev B, one Teac CD-R 55S external (yes, SCSI, and older!) and one entrega USB-SCSI adapter. After startup the iBook I attach the SCSI CD-R into USB port, the adapter works fine... burned dozens of full backups CDs of data or audio, at 4x.

My 2 cents' worth. I am using a Sony Spressa USB Plus with a Rev A iMac and a bronze G3 Powerbook. Software is Toast 4.1 and Discribe. Burns data consistently at 4X, music at 2X. No problems, no coasters - Discribe works great - simpler than Toast for most everything except copying vinyl or making bootable CD's.

The Que! 4x4x8 USB was a complete disaster with my 333 mhz iMac, using 8.5.1 with 160 megs of RAM.....Never got it to work, sent it back to Macmall and had to pay for shipping. The company (QPS) sucks, didn't reply to several e-mails, and no one answers the customer service line in California. Only after that did I find out that so many people have had problems with this poor product.

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by Leslie:
USB will never burn faster than 4x because the usb bus can't maintain the data rate necessary to complete a higher speed burn.

Get a LaCie USB CDRW. Lacie uses the plextor mechanism and Plextor is the very best in the business (warning they are not the cheapest) MacGurus.com will only sell Plextor cdroms & burners because they are the best! You should check out Macgurus.com just to experience the attitude they have. Anyway you will have to get the LaCie elsewhere (like lacie.com) if you want one

I am not affiliated with any company mentioned here I am just a very satisfied Plextor (repeat) customer.

LaCie do not exclusively use the Plextor mechanisms. I have seen LaCie drives that use Yamaha's and Samsungs.
And by the way, Plextor is far from the best in the busniess.
They are only average. Yamaha are the undisputed best.
And you cannot prove me wrong on this.
I have never seen a problem with a Yamaha on these forums. I have seen so many probs with Que!'s and Plextors that its ridiculous (although, much fewer probs with Plextors than Que!'s...).
Yamaha have been in it the longest and know best.
Perhaps MacGuru's have a deal with Plextor?
Hm... its funny really, I hope you don't expect us to take it seriously that the reason MacGurus only sells Plextors is because they're the best?
Get real...
Funny you find it so necessary to stress the fact that you are [emph+]NOT[emph-] a Plextor employee...
Yeah...

Cipher13

[This message has been edited by Cipher13 (edited 11-14-2000).]

hey, i've been looking around for a usb cdrw drive and stumbled upon your forum with Glooton (cool search program free @ www.glooton.com) and i have seen numerous complaints about usb's inability to handle speeds higher than 4x, some people say 2x for audio, some say they can get 4x. I have found an Archos technology Mac USB CD-RW with 8x4x24 write x rewrite x read, and i was wondering whether it would work on my iMac (not sure which rev. but it is def. firewireless, 300mhz, rage128, 64 mg ram etc..)and iBook (first one out). I was also wondering where you guys recommend purchasing my final choice (online??) i live in mass. and the only local store i know of is Microcenter, but i haven't got ahold of them yet.

thanks,
Alex

[Cipher13]

An 8*4*24 USB burner is a crock.
It can not go faster than 4*4*6, if you are LUCKY.
Avoid it at all costs - FireWire and SCSI are the only way to go.

If you can get a dual USB/FireWire thats ok, so when you get a FireWire equipped Mac later, it'll still work.

Cipher13

[mikithecrackhead]

I have the iomega zip650 usb and it work fine on my imac.
wish it could be faster but bottom line: it gets the job done.
ps i burn at 4x

[brucewayne]

I've a zip650 with my 333 imac using 8.6. The only problems I've had was ....a) freezing when I plugged it in (obvious extension conflict that was easily cured by downloading the latest toast) and b)...."medium errors" due to poor media. (Strangely enough, the media that caused the most problems were Memorex. Bought a spindle -white writeable area - and things were fine. So I bought another memorex spindle - gold writeable area. Halfway through the first spindle...coasters everytime. The second spindle has worked fine. However...on the Iomega website they list all media that has been tested and is recommended, and Memorex just ain't there. As long as I stick with Kodak, Sony, Fuji, Rioch, and the others listed, the unit just purrs along.)

[finboy]

I've had pretty good luck with my USB Sony Spressa and my iMac 333 and ibook 300. I usually burn at 2x, rarely at 4x (if it's CD to CD, data).

I attribute being able to successfully burn CDs to several things:

I always run it through a powered hub.

I bought the full version of Toast. Best investment I ever made.

I don't try to use a USB/SCSI adapter at the same time.

I keep my HD defragmented, in case Toast needs to make a temporary partition.

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Alright you primitive screwheads, listen up!

CANNOT get Toast 4.1.1 to see the LaCie burner it came bundled with. I'm in hour #7...

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by steelydon:
CANNOT get Toast 4.1.1 to see the LaCie burner it came bundled with. I'm in hour #7...

Have you tried Toast Deluxe?

Cipher13

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AIM: Cipher1387
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mail: [email protected]