Syntrillium Backup Forums :: View topic - Two CD recorders in 1 PC

Andrew Rose · Location: United Kingdom

Still experimenting with this, but thought I'd share what I've found so far.

My IDE set up has two UDMA Mode 5 7200rpm hard drives, each sharing a channel with a Lite-On 48125S (48x12x48x) CD-RW, each one of which cost me Ł49.99 from a UK high street chain store.

My reason for getting a second recorder was to try and speed up writing processes - I always burn a back-up for storage, and if I can do two at once (using Nero) it'll half the time I spend doing this.

First the (mildly) disappointing news - the drives slowed down a lot, so it's taking 5 minutes to make 2x 1 hour-long audio discs, rather than 2'30"ish, at 40x (max speed for my CD-R discs). This seems to be down to overstretched IDE channels, and I'll report back once I've got an IDE card in as well. Given what I relate below I don't anticipate problems for long!

Next the stunning news. I took one of these audio discs and asked Nero to do a CD-CD copy on the fly. The whole thing ran at 40x and completed in less than 2'30 - with buffers at 98-100% all the way through. Listening to the copy CD as I write there's not the slightest sign of errors or problems - it sounds like a perfect copy.8)

I then ran the Nero CD-Speed advanced DAE tests on the recorder, which confirmed what I'm hearing - this thing can rip audio like nothing I've seen before - audio quality 100% at high speeds. This'll make burning replacement discs from back-ups a doddle!

I'd heard and read good things about these Lite-On writers before buying, but reckoned that for the money they charged there must be a catch. Well for 2/3rd the price I paid back in June for a Philips 24x model they're not only much faster but the write quality is much, much better. I only replaced the Philips cos of writing quality issues. If you're thinking of upgrading, I can't recommend these Lite-Ons highly enough. Cool

post78 · Location: USA

This is how you make duplication machines. Get a tower and add a bunch of SCSI drives, then RAID them all.

Andrew Rose · Location: United Kingdom

Except this is all IDE.

Anyway, I don't now know whether it was fragmentation or IDE capacity which caused my problems. I put in the extra PCI IDE adapter but still had problems. Then I looked at the drive read speed and found a problem there. After defragging it disppeared!

I still can't get over 40x perfect audio CD-CD copying. I remember trying this with my first CD writer at 2x and it was hopeless! If you're still on a 'vintage' writer now is a good time to buy...

djlyon · Location: Romania