I'm looking for an EXTERNAL DVD/CD burner, preferably through USB. I want to use it with my laptop. Thanks, Sachin
i bought my dvd burner the last week. i haven't burned anything yet. the only thing it burned so far was my money. there's nothing to burn for me. i don't know why i even bought one
plextor and tdk are the best should be around 200 for the 8x dual burners are coming out soon, so you may want to wait (supposedly there is a firmware upgrade for the single layer ones, but i'm not convinced yet) you can get a cheapie one for prolly closer to 150, but i'd recommend the plextor/tdk (which are supposedly the same drive, just relabeled so either will work)
Make sure it's USB 2.0 - and you have USB 2.0 ports on your motherboard, or buy a card - or be prepared to wait forever for a DVD burn to finish. I'm pretty sure nobody would make a USB 1.0 DVD burner, but you very well may need to drop another 30 bucks or so on a USB 2.0 interface card.
usb 2.0 is backward compatible so it could work w/ usb 1.0 but yeah, it'd take forever so just make sure you have a 2.0 port or get the card
max throughput usb 1.1 --- 1.5 MBps usb 2.0 --- 60MBps (480 Mbps) firewire 400 (ieee 1394) --- 12.5-50MBps (100-400Mbps) ------ firewire 800 (probably the next generation not sure if they are out already for dvd burners)--- 100MBps (800Mbps) DVD speed (1x on DVD is roughly 9-10x faster than 1x of CD which reads 150 KBps) 1x 1.25 MBps (approximately) 4x 5.0 MBps 8x 10MBps check usb2.0 vs. firewire 400 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,844061,00.asp although usb 2.0's max thorughput beats firewire 400, firewire 400 works faster than usb 2.0 in most of case. dvd burner barely works with usb 1.1. not even 1x i believe.