Buyer's Guide - Mid-Range, October 2004

Optical Drive Recommendations

Optical drives are one area where the price, performance, and features of competing products are extremely close. For most people, a decent DVD+/-RW drive will function well as a "Jack of All Trades", although some of you might want to add a second DVD-ROM drive in order to create backup images of a disc without storing data on the hard drive. CD-R and DVD-R discs can also function as a quick and easy backup medium for whatever sort of work you do on your PC. Long-term storage of the discs may not be 100% reliable, but if you back up your critical files weekly to a new disc, you should be pretty safe from data loss.

DVD+/-RW Recommendation: NEC DVD+/-RW Drive Model 3500A
Price: $73 Shipped (OEM)

While we haven't officially reviewed it yet, we are very impressed with the newest NEC 3500A drive, and with a price of just over $70, we prefer it over most of the competition. The drive is also available in beige, should that work better with your case. About the only feature missing from the drive is DVD-RAM support. For a drive that supports 16X DVD+R burn speeds as well as 4X DVD+R DL, such an omission is not a deal breaker. We should also mention that finding media capable of 16X burn speeds is still difficult. Those willing to flash the BIOS to the latest version - or perhaps even a "hacked" version - may find that burn speeds and reliability are improved. The practice is becoming relatively common for those trying to get the fastest DVD burn speeds out of their drives. Lite-On, Pioneer, Plextor, Sony, and many other brands are also acceptable.

DVD-ROM Alternative: Lite-On 16X DVD-ROM Model SOHD-167T
Price: $30 Shipped (Retail)

For those who like to have a second optical drive, we offer this selection. There isn't a whole lot of difference between the various DVD-ROM drives these days. They can all read DVDs at 16X and CDs at 48X or 52X. Seek times might vary slightly, but most uses of optical drives do not rely heavily on seek times. Just remember to match your drive with your case. While Lite-On is a popular model, it is also possible to get alternative colors for the face plate, which some people might find useful. The retail version of this drive includes Power DVD 5 and an audio cable, so for the extra $1, it seems like a nice addition.