SCSI vs IDE

M

Mac Cool

My previous two cd burners were Yamaha SCSIs, on my current machine I
decided to go IDE since reviewers claim that IDE is just as good. Well, I
have been very unhappy with my Samsung SW-240B and I'm wondering if the
problems I'm having are inherent to IDE burners or if the Samsung is at
fault.

During years of burning hundreds of disks using SCSI burners, I may have
had 2 coasters. Out of the hundreds of disks I've burned with the Samsung
IDE, I'm running about 5-10% coasters depending on the brand. (I'm using
the exact same brands as I before). I did update the Samsung's bios a
while back and it did seem to help.

Furthermore, the 24X SCSI burned at 24X; the 40X Samsung IDE will only
burn at 24X reliably, 32X on some brands but not all.

Ideas? Should I scrap the Samsung for a different brand or should I go
back to SCSI?
 
J

John R Weiss

I am also a SCSI fan, but have found that software and good blanks are part
of the equation as well. My new IDE DVD+/-RW has been doing better than my
SCSI Yamaha CD-RW for CD burning/copying...
 
N

Nate

My previous two cd burners were Yamaha SCSIs, on my current machine I
decided to go IDE since reviewers claim that IDE is just as good. Well, I
have been very unhappy with my Samsung SW-240B and I'm wondering if the
problems I'm having are inherent to IDE burners or if the Samsung is at
fault.

During years of burning hundreds of disks using SCSI burners, I may have
had 2 coasters. Out of the hundreds of disks I've burned with the Samsung
IDE, I'm running about 5-10% coasters depending on the brand. (I'm using
the exact same brands as I before). I did update the Samsung's bios a
while back and it did seem to help.

Furthermore, the 24X SCSI burned at 24X; the 40X Samsung IDE will only
burn at 24X reliably, 32X on some brands but not all.

Ideas? Should I scrap the Samsung for a different brand or should I go
back to SCSI?

How is your Samsung connected to your system? With you getting a good
amount of coasters and not reliably burning much above 24x it sounds like
the CDRW is connected to the same IDE channel as the drive it's being fed
from.

You need to ensure that your CDRW is on a completely different IDE channel
from the drive it's getting data from because an IDE channel can only
either write or read at once.. As such the IDE channel would have a very
hard time keeping up with the required data transfer, and almost certainly
would not be able to sustain 6000KB/sec needed to write at 40x.

Also, I've had fair success with a Samsung drive in the past, it worked
well enough provided the machine did nothing but burn the CD. That was a
pre burn-proof drive though so my experience may not mean anything to you
in this situation. I do use a Lite-On LTR-4824S now and have had zero
problems with it, it burns everything I want at 48x no matter what the
rest of the computer is doing. If you were going to get a different IDE
CDRW I would certainly recommend a Lite-On.

Good luck,
Nate
 
M

Mac Cool

John R Weiss said:
I am also a SCSI fan, but have found that software and good blanks
are part of the equation as well. My new IDE DVD+/-RW has been doing
better than my SCSI Yamaha CD-RW for CD burning/copying...

same software, same blanks

Are you saying that you had problems with your Yamaha SCSI burner? I had
two Yamaha burners, I think I had one coaster on the first one and two
coasters on the second (one my fault, the second happened during a power
surge).
 
J

John R Weiss

Mac Cool said:
Are you saying that you had problems with your Yamaha SCSI burner? I had
two Yamaha burners, I think I had one coaster on the first one and two
coasters on the second (one my fault, the second happened during a power
surge).

Yes. Maybe it was marginal for the computer (P3-550), or vice-versa...
 
M

Mac Cool

Nate said:
You need to ensure that your CDRW is on a completely different IDE
channel from the drive it's getting data from

I'll double check that. I'm pretty sure the two hard drives are on one IDE
channel and the CDR & DVD are on the other.
Also, I've had fair success with a Samsung drive in the past, it
worked well enough provided the machine did nothing but burn the CD.
That was a pre burn-proof drive though so my experience may not mean
anything to you in this situation. I do use a Lite-On LTR-4824S now
and have had zero problems with it, it burns everything I want at 48x
no matter what the rest of the computer is doing. If you were going
to get a different IDE CDRW I would certainly recommend a Lite-On.

Cool, I might just do that after I check the IDE connections.
 
M

Mac Cool

John R Weiss said:
Yes. Maybe it was marginal for the computer (P3-550), or
vice-versa...

It's just odd the way one person can have perfect experiences with a
product and someone else can have negative experiences.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top