Plextor PlexWriter 121032A 12x10x32 Internal EIDE CDRW Drive

List Price: $329.00

Features:

• Read, write, and rewrite data
• Create a 650 MB disc in 6 minutes
• Easy installation
• Fast 150-millisecond average random-access time
• 2 MB buffer

Accessories:
Memorex CD/DVD White Labels (100-Pack)	Altec Lansing 2100 2.1 Computer Speakers (3-Speaker, Black & Silver)	Fellowes Nylon CD Wallet (224-Disc Capacity)	Fellowes Nylon CD Album (320-Disc Capacity)	Fellowes Worcester 96 CD Wire Tower

Customer Reviews:

Great CD burner, now terrific price!! [Posted on 2001-12-02]
My family bought two of these when they were [more expensive], and we were happy with them THEN! We've been using them for over a year and have had consistently good results with audio files, MP3s, data -- you name it. Never any buffer problems. Now, at [this price] minus the (...) rebate, it's a geniune steal.
Buy the 12/10/32 today!

excellent buy [Posted on 2002-01-09]
Excellent drive. Works perfectly & is very quiet (unlike the noisy Yamaha). If necessary, spend the extra money & get a Plextor. The bundled software is about the same no matter which burner you buy. If you want or need all the bells & whistles you will have to buy the full versions. I'm very pleased. I just wish I hadn't bought & returned the Yamaha first.

What a joke! [Posted on 2002-01-23]
I bought 2 of the Plextor PlexWriters it turned out to be an expensive joke. One was a gift and the other for myself. Mine didn't last 2 months before it broke down. The seller replaced it with a new one. Which last almost to the end of the year warrenty before it completely broke down. I never used mine over 12 to 15 times the entire year. The one for the gift lasted about 5 months and had to be sent in for repairs under warrenty. It lasted about another 4 months after it was repaired before it quit again. I gave this product a one star rating which is more than it deserves.

Simple elegance [Posted on 2002-01-31]
This is my fourth cd-rw drive. The first, an HP, was an unmitigated disaster; awful to install, poor documentation, utterly hopeless help desk -- replaced twice, finally suffered a power failure that cooked my computer. The second was a SONY usb with a godawful software and a highly fragile cable that recently died and would cost almost as much as the burner to replace. The third is a Backpack parallel port portable that is highly reliable but SLOW as molasses.

Along came the Plextor in the mail from Amazon. Using it with Win98se, lots of horsepower and memory. Now, this easily installed piece of electronic elegance runs like a charm. It comes with Roxio software as well as some utilities of its own to permit packet writing, audio ripping, etc. While I have no love for Roxio (formerly Adaptec) because of its generally arrogant attitude towards customers, a lot of miserable documentation with OEM drives, and truly crummy support policies, and Nero and other programs are preferred by many users, the bundled software runs very well with the Plextor.

A great feature included with this burner is its Burnproof technology, which protects the user against the dreaded buffer underruns which have plagued me over the years and, for many users, created a lot of coasters. To test this I asked it burn a full disk of MP3 files located on a remote client pc on my home telephone network. Voila, it hummed away and produced the disk in about seven minutes.

Bottom line, many in the user community consider this one of the best drives ever built. For me, it is so far so good. Simply and elegantly.

Plextor = Perfection [Posted on 2002-03-09]
I think there's a reason why most Plextor models sold at Amazon tend to sell out like hotcakes -- every year their models set the standard for burners.

I'm writing this review fourteen months after purchasing it, and I can proudly say this was the wisest computer-related purchase I ever made. The 2MB buffer might pale in comparison to other models, but the BurnProof technology is flawless. I have 256MB of RAM on my computer, and I'm usually browsing the web, checking email, chatting and downloading mp3s while I burn music and data. The buffer always stays at 100% and never fidgets. It's remarkable how solid and reliable the burning process is.

The burning process never halts or stops -- it's a continuous recording that takes usually 6-8 minutes for a full 80-minute (700MB) CD-R. The CD-RW (rewrite) process takes a little longer, but it's barely noticeable. And if you multitask with other programs, you won't even notice the time going by.

That's not to say I didn't run into any problems. The only time I had my system crash while burning is when I tried copying a CD to another CD. The Plextor manual specifically encourages not to copy a CD from a slaved IDE drive to a master drive (the burner), but rather burning directly from the hard drive. So as long as you follow all the instructions, you won't be making any coasters.

The installed software is very easy and compatible for novices. I'm not a big audiophile so I don't need feature-rich programs like Nero or Easy CD Platinum 5. The included programs Easy CD Creator 4 (by Adaptec), CD labeler, and DirectCD software are all very good and reliable. Plus, the Easy CD 4.0 uses under 10MB of hard drive space, whereas the high-tech Easy CD 5 goes well over 100MB! I prefer sticking to software that don't use as many resources, and I've never had a problem. If you're just going to make basic music CDs, record data or backup stuff, the included software will be more than enough. And the Plextor brand definitely equals a stress-free product. Check the website for rebates!

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