plextor or yamaha?

[Busterr]

I'm still trying to determine if Yamaha has altered things a bit for the new 16x burner, so that it supports CloneCD.

Anyone know the answer to this one?


Mike

 

[*kjm]

CloneCD is a good program but it is NOT the only one out there!!!!
I use CDRWin with my Yamahas and have yet to see a program I can not do. This bord is full of first time owners that think they know it all. Yes Plextor is one of the best, that is what I use for my reader. But their burners are overpriced! I ahve been burning for almost 10 years and my Yamahas have been great, and like I said we have all made backups of all kinds of disks. And I know for a fact my firs one is still going srong because my brothers son is using it!

 

[PC Freak]

I've got the Plextor 8432, and will never buy any other product.
Plextor forever

 

[xyyz]

i've owned two yamahas and they've worked great... but someone was telling me something about plextor's coaster proof or something like that... if they can guarntee something like that, it's no contest... go for the plextor.

 

[pdo]

wow 10 years? I didn't even know they have burner 10 years ago..

 

[WWDude]

Thanks for the extra explanation. I stumble upon a copy protected CD I wanna burn about every month, and so I really need to get a Plextor. I realize that both are great burners (I've had great experinces with both companies in the past). However, Plextor sells at well over 100$ more than Yamaha at this end of the world, and I'm still not sure what I'm gonna get. Ahhh, decision.... decisions...

 

[Busterr]

Well, I can't decide whether I should get the new 16x Yamaha, or the 12x PLextor. They are botha bout the same price here. Any opinions?

Mike

 

[NFS4]

Plextor

 

[jmcoreymv]

Normally Id say plextor but I think Id go for the yamaha now cuz of the 16x

 

[Busterr]

Are the differences between Yamaha and PLextor huge, or are we splitting hairs here?

 

[jose]

PLEXTOR

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Plextor is a great performer all around, has lots of features, and let's not forget about the cool software that it comes with. Much better than the adaptec easy cd crap..

 

[billandopus]

WWDude, if the price difference between the Yamaha and the Plextor in your area is more than 100 dollars then pick up the Yamaha no question. I'm certainly not advocating people to go out of their way to pick up a Plextor just for CloneCd compatibility if the price difference is that great. Since Buy.com has good deals on Plextors with coupon - this is the reason why the price of admission is relatively low for a Plextor product.

However, if it's important to you and you have lots of copy protected games that you want to "back up" then it very well may be worth it for the Plextor. If that's the case then i'd would recommend looking at other brands for this job. Mitsumi's 4408te is supposedly a good burner that's fully compatible with CloneCd and is relatively cheap and reliable (so i've heard) - a compromise. You can check up on other supported cdr/w burners at these sites:

www.elaboratebytes.com - unofficial CloneCd website - check forums for good info.
www.elaborate-bytes.com - official site. "hardware"

As for CDRWin, i'm sure that it's a good program ... however, a friend of mine used a Yamaha burner and CDRWin and was having problems burning a bunch of titles as "backups". I told him about the CloneCd program and he went out and bought a Plex 8432a and downloaded CloneCd and he's now a convert. I'm not sure if the commment about burning "newbies" here on Anandtech is all that fair insinuating that people haven't done their homework and that's why people are all narrowminded about CloneCd and nothing else. The general concensus of my time hanging out at various sites like the alt.comp.periphs.cdr newsgroup and the CloneCd forums among others all see to point to one direction. Some others have good results with Blind Read/Write and with DiscJuggler. But these programs are used after CloneCd and not before, imo. If a program works for you then that's great and keep on truckin'. But if you run into problems then you know where to go.

 

[SunGoku]

Either one is fine, I've been burning since the early 90's, back when 2X is considered fast. I still have an external Yamaha 400TX SCSI burner (4 times CD-R, no RW) and a defunct Yamaha 2X burner. I also owned Plextor 8/4/32A as well as my current 12X SCSI plextor burner (in my signature).

If both units cost the same, have similar burning rating, and similar software software (extremenly important in my opinion, when I purchased my plextor 12X burner, I had to go back to EZCD 3.5D just so I can use my burner), I will go with plextor. Other people might think differently.

Both brands make excellent burners, plextor also makes excellent CD-ROM drives. I have the old plextor 6X CD-ROM, 8/20, as well as 40X UW SCSI CD-ROM. All of them are still working, but who wants the 6X cd-rom now?

Back when my 8/20 CD-ROM drive won't accept CD-RW media (because it's too old), I called plextor tech and they even shipped a new firmware chip to me (since I can't flash 8/20 firmware). Yamaha also has good tech support.

I don't do too much "backups" since I've been working for a while. I am a programmer so...I try to support fellow programmers I think my stance might change once I start to have children, I've heard some horror stories from co-workers and I think backups are definitely needed, especially with children around. I love the plextor because I used to spend a lot of my HDD space as well as my time in compiling my favorite CD collection. I hate all those audio CD I bought that has only a few tracks I like. I used my plextor drives to make quite a few favorites collection. If you are not into that (audio editing), go with Yamaha if it's cheaper.

Good luck, if it's not for my wife, I would've upgraded more parts of my system