Where's my Plextor SCSI drive?

[DentyCracker]

Whereas SCSI burners were the one type of SCSI device that I believed was worth the extra cash, with the advent of burnproof I no longer believe that (on a limited budget). I don't care if Plextor never comes out with a SCSI version of the PleXWriter 16X10X40. I'm going to buy one of the IDE ones as soon as I get some spare cash, or a buyer for the PX-W8432T that has served me so well for over a year. I've been using a couple of the IDE 12X ones at work and they rock. We also sent back a 4416S (twice) for warranty repairs. The 16x Yamaha is impressive but it's lack of Burnproof worries me.

[xortam]

There are many advantages to SCSI besides its superior ability to handle burners. I've never burned a coaster, on 2x burners or the 4x burner. Besides, I have absolutely no IDE/ATAPI devices in my system and I'm saving an interrupt by sticking with a pure system.

Adaptec has provided a "burn proof" ability with its Waste-Proof Write Strategy™:

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Waste-Proof Write Strategy™--This exclusive write strategy maximizes stability of the recording environment by combining a large buffer memory, CAV writing support for on-the-fly data backup, and specific fine-tunings to the recording software, resulting in elimination of buffer underruns and waste of media.</font>

[HomeBrewer]

In answer to your reply. The decision was to be wether to produce a SCSI model. I don't imagine the development should be very much. They have been doing this stuff for quite some time and any technical challanges to mate their present controller to a higher performance drive mechanism should be minor. I suspect it is only a market analsys issue. Are there enough customers out there to warrant new packaging costs (photography/silk screening, manual printing, etc.)and pushing dealers to stock yet another version?

[xortam]

I find it interesting that Plextor would produce a faster IDE drive first and still not have a SCSI version six months later. SCSI had been traditionally where the market was for high performance burners. This shows a lack of commitment to SCSI on Plextor's part. I guess this is an indication of the improvements in the ATAPI interface and a market change. We only had SCSI PCs in my last job (two years ago).

[Wombat]

They aren't that far behind. The 12A, then the 12S, now the 16A.

And BURN proof really is sweet. The only coasters I have were because of the VIA/SBLive! thing. Even with IDE, I will start a burn, fire up CounterStrike, and just go.

Plextor isn't really that expensive anymore. My 12x was $220, and that was in August, when 12x was pretty new. It's under $200 now.

[xortam]

Perhaps I'm being a bit too hard on Plextor. They certainly have a loyal customer base. I'm just frustrated with waiting for them to produce a SCSI version which is at least on par with their fastest IDE version. I realize there isn't much of an edge to the Yamaha 16x since it doesn't run at that higher speed through the whole burn. I also may be looking at the competition through too narrow of a time window and its simply a matter of product cycles. It seems for quite a while Plextor was always leading the pack by coming out with the fastest drives in the industry but Yamaha has really stepped up to bat lately with their new products. I'm anxious to hear what Plextor has to say so I can go ahead and make my decision.

[Paddy]

I have the plextor 1210s.

The 16x drive is not going to be that much faster now is it? Personally i would wait for the 16x drive to come out and then buy the 12x.

It takes me 4 mins to burn a CD. I can live with that.

[SteveC]

I don't really get this burnproof thing.

Look at it this way:

You have an 8X non burnproof drive and it writes without problems.

You have a 12X burnproof capable drive and it writes at 12X, but has to keep stopping and starting its write due to the PC not being able to keep up with it, so overall, it takes as much time as an 8X would have...

I've always said, if you write a lot of CDs - get a SCSI writer, and you'll never have a problem. (That said, I currently use a 10X Sony IDE drive, but that's cos I needed a new writer quick when my old one died - I don't write enough CDs though to warrant buying a new SCSI one.)

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Paulr: I still think it takes a lot to beat doing a SCSI to SCSI CD Copy - SCSI to SCSI never fails.
</font>

Exactly - in a SCSI - SCSI write, the data virtually goes straight from the reader to writer without ever going past the SCSI interface card.

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[Paulr]

Aye :-)
I just love going from my Pioneer 32x/6x Slot to the Yamaha.
Coasters, what are they then??

[Wombat]

Steve, my 12x burns at 12x. However, since I didn't want to shell out for a SCSI system, BURN-Proof saves me from the potential coaster. 19 times out of 20 I don't need it. But if I'm doing something really big that hogs the CPU, I don't worry about it. Also, sometimes if I'm doing CD-to-CD burning, and my Pioneer doesn't handle the disc well, the Plextor just waits. Convenient for me.

[xortam]

My recent ECDC 3.5 on W2K fiasco forced the decision to buy a new burner in order to get some W2K compatible burning SW. I decided to get the Plextor 12/10/32S (PX-W1210TS). I called Plextor and the salesman wasn't able to provide with me any info about new SCSI drive plans. I was discouraged about Plextor's lack of commitment but I decided to hunt down some reviews on the Plextor as well as the Yamaha CRW2100SZ. I read some bothersome things concerning the Yamaha drive. There were several complaints of the CRW2100SZ excessively vibrating when operating at high speeds, along with a high noise level. The Yamaha also wasn't able to deliver a constant 10x RW speed but rather operated at 4x for a good deal of the time. I do tend to use the RWs so this was important to me. There were only good things to be said about the Plextor. I wanted to try the Plextor after owning the Yamaha CRW4416S anyway so that finalized the decision. I'm having some problems with the SW package that came with the drive (ECDC couldn't read from drive then the CD drives suddenly stopped working). It may have something to do with the Adaptec SW not being supported under W2K-AS (Professional version only) but the kicker was when the drives disappeared after installing Plextor Manager 2000. I'll leave the SW problems for another thread if I can't work it out.

[isochar]

Seems no one has the correct scoop, so here it is:

Plextor Europe will discontinue selling SCSI products. Plextor USA will continue selling them, and Plextor Asia is unknown at this time.

The next SCSI CD-RW from Plextor is going to be based on the 24x JustStep Technology. (I think that's what it is called) It will do a 650mb disc partially at 16x, some with 20x, and the rest with 24x.

July is the period they should be showing up.

[xortam]

Where did you get this info and do you consider it reliable? And why did you wait until just a few hours after I bought the drive to bring this up?


...

[isochar]

This info comes from the webmaster at cdrinfo.com. He has his hands on all the new toys coming from all the CD-R(W)manufacturers, and knows a lot more than he tells us. (I assume due to NDAs)

I apologize for posting so late, but I just read the thread...

To ease your pain, the difference in speed between a 16x and the 24x drive will be neglible. Maybe a minute when burning a 700mb disc. The only thing that makes the drive worth buying is the combination of a SCSI interface and high-speed burning.

This makes me think of the "ignorance is bliss" line from The Matrix

[This message has been edited by isochar (edited 31 May 2001).]

[isochar]

One more thing. Supposedly the quality has to be extremely high to be "rated" at these speeds, so Expect to pay a premium for 20x and 24x media.

Rumor has it that we won't expect anything faster than 24x since the amount of vibration and quality control are becoming a huge issue at those speeds. The next step is DVD-R drives!!