How many folks out there have a cd-rom drive?  I'd like to get
one, but like computers there are so many models out there
choosing one can be confusing.
 
For example, the lowest you can go seems to be the Mitsumi;  you
can get one for less than $200.  On the other hand, you can spend
$1000 or more for a SCSI drive with a sound card and cd library.
 
Anyone have a clue on the best way to go?

25 responses total.

And I'll ask for a further clue on the best way to go if you want
a CD-ROM that's supported by two operating systems (I run both DOS
and Linux on my 486).

  If you want a CD-ROM that will work on both DOS and Linux, you need either
a SCSI one (with a supported controller), or (I think) a Sony CDU something
or other...  (check the faqs)...

  As for CD-ROMs, there are a lot of factors... the millisecond access time...
whether it's double spin (make it transfer data at 300k/sec instead of
150k/sec)... lot's of other little factors, as well, like photo cd
compatibility and stuff...  Also, make sure you can hook it up to your
sound card, if you have one--it never hurts to be able to use it as an
audio cd player, as well :)....
  I've been shopping CD-ROMS a bit myself, and I think that I'm going with
the Texel.  It's a nice, fast drive, at 265ms, and double spin with either
300 or 330? transfer.  The only thing I don't like about it is that it has
a caddy (which will make it a pain for audio cd's, which is a priority, since
I don't have another cd player), but if I get some extra caddies, this
shouldn't be too bad.  It'll hook up and run fine with my Proaudio Spectrum's
SCSI, and do the audio thing to.  I hope to get it this Sat. actually, so
remind me and I'll let you all know how it is... I had a friend with one
(though he moved to Indiana for school before I got to play with it :) ),
and it seemed to work pretty nicely....

You definitely want a SCSI CD-ROM if compatibility with non-DOS OSes
is at all important.  You probably also want one with multisession
capability and multispin (assuming your driver supports it).
Access time is important if you plan to use the CD-ROM a lot; make
sure it's low enough to work with your applications, since some
CD-ROM drives being sold are so slow that they simply won't work under
some circumstances.

The best deals are on the Texel power is talking about and the
Toshiba 200ms. They are in the $400-$500 range, but blow the $200 Mitsumi
out of the water in terms of speed. After using the Texel and the Toshiba
I could never go back to the Mitsumi.

The Mitsumi is 150kb/s while the Texel and Toshiba are 300+kb/s. 

I have an Apple CD SC Plus, the second model they came out with.  I use
it for audio CDs (it has headphone as well as RCA outputs and a volume
control) as well as CD-ROM (mostly developer CD seriers) and Photo-CD.
It and the CD 150 can only handle single session Photo CD, but the
newer CD300 is double speed and can handle multi-session PhotoCD.

One of the cool things is taht if you mount the 300 inside a Quadra, you
can route the sound to the audio in and sample it.  On the new av class
machines (840av, 650av) you can keep it all digital for 16bit sampling
by the DSP.

  Yeah, I have the same thing with my Texel.  Actually, I'm listening to
Hindemith's Symphony in B flat right now.. (just got the CD earlier today,
now that I have something to play it on :) )...  And you should be able
to hook a CD-ROM up for digitization, etc, on any sound card equipped
IBM compatible--you just need to call the manufacturer of the sound card
and get them to send you a cable to run between the CD-ROM and the sound
card... this is beyond the line-in input, at least on my PAS16... I hope
to order said cable Tuesday--$11, which isn't bad...
  The software to play CD's that came with the PAS is *REALLY* cool, too!
You can name tracks, CD's, etc, and it remembers it across sessions and
everything, and can recognize CD's.. you can also specify an order, or tell
it to wait until you start sampling, then to play--it's way cool!!! :)

I have an NEC CD-ROM, and it's great.  Commerical packages are coming out
now on CD, at very nice rates. You get a lot of extras on CDs too.

The NEC is decent, but the Texel is 5ms faster and cost less, and the
Toshiba is about the same price and blows the NEC out of the water in 
terms of performance.

What's good in the way of external drives?  I only have one free bay, and
I think I want to put a backup tape drive in that slot.

One free 3.5" or 5.25"? We have tape drives which will fit into a 3.5" 
bay, so you don't have to take up a 5.25".

I personally do not like external devices because they take up space all
over my desk (and those who have seen my desk know there is no room to play
around with). If you have a free 5.25" bay, get an internal CD ROM drive.
The advantage of an external CD ROM drive is if you are on a low budget and
have, say, a Mac and an IBM. You would be able to use the same drive on the
Mac and the IBM. 

Time to resurrect this item!

I've purchased an NEC IDE drive for my old 486.  This is one that you slave
onto your primary hard drive (or get another IDE card for) and run the
included software.

It doesn't quite work yet.  The driver loads, and appears to talk to the
drive, but when I try to access the drive I get a "Divide Overflow" error,
or from applications I usually get a divide b zero and a crash.

I'm going to clean even more junk off the PC next, since I was going to load
a new OS anyway, and see if I can get it to work.  Beyond that, what clues?
This thing was a real bargain, but no real documentation.

BTW, DOS seems to think it is a network drive.  I'm going to erase the HD and
load DOS over again, since the current setup dates back about 3 years from
a different PC.

So what's the current state of CD-Recordable?  How much other compute power
(AV disk drive, etc) do you need to make practical use of one?  It looks like
the street prices for a basic CD-R drive is now below $400, with disks less
than $2 in bulk.  Would be a cool way to do backups... and to build "mix" CDs
of fave music.

Can one use them consecutively - i.e., add to what has been recorded? If
not, it would make backups rather expensive. 

(Cheaper than tapes.)  Whether or not you can add to a CDR depends on how it
was written.  Usually, you can add tracks to a CDR.  However, sometimes the
writing program writes a "CD complete" notice, in which case you can't add
anything.

Generally, you want more than 750 MB free of disk, 24-36 MB RAM, and another
CD-ROM.  Oh, and don't run anything else while the CD is writing. :)

Sounds like audio rules there.  I'm thinking audio 50%, backups 50%.  Right
now I'm using a Zip drive for backups, which can get expensive if I want lots
of backup sets.

I keep two ZIP backup sets, of 6 disks each. Say they cost $12-per: After
36 backups, the per-backup cost averages out to $2. After that, the
per-backup cost drops further. Hence, after about a year, ZIP disks are
cheaper than using CDRs at $2 each. 

But you have no history beyond the last backup set, and where the heck are
you getting Zip disks that cheap?  :)

Yesterday I was in Computer City (Buffalo, NY), and happened to see a 
10-pack of zip disks for $119. That works out to $12 per disk. There 
may have been a $10 rebate coupon available as well, but I don't 
remember exactly.

And 5-packs cost ca. $63 (Fuji). I just noticed that MacMall is selling
Maxell ZIP 7-packs for $70 (plus s/h). 

Why do you want "history" beyond the last two backups? These are backups,
not archives. I do keep another ZIP with installers I download from the
web. I started that when my downloaded Netscape Navigator got corrupted.

For when you find that you deleted your much-needed file the day (or week)
before you made your oldest backup set.

The only times I have used my backups, so far, is to replace an application
that has become corrupted. Looking at the record...it is more like three
weeks between backups, so I have backups from between 3 and 6 weeks ago. 
Otherwise, I tend to keep "much-needed files" around for a long time
before I clean house, so they are more threated by a disk crash than by
my intentionally deleting them. 

Ah,' but you run MacOS, a more stable operating system than my Win95.  :/

(..smug grin....)

Actually, this indicates that you're using your system (and its backups) only
for rather low-key, personal purposes.  Maintain a system used by several
different users, intensively, many hours a day for (say) the accounting and
correspondence & general record-keeping functions of a business, and you'll
sooner or later find that files were deleted or changed but you still need
them.  Three weeks is probably not anything like long enough, though that
depends on the nature of the business.

Files garbaged by the OS are a relatively small part of the problem.  (OK,
the OSs in question are more stable than MS-Win of any variety, but still.)
The fact that changes are made, and that people clean up files they think are
no longer needed, is a *much* more common reason for going back to backup.
(I know someone, who shall remain nameless (but it's not *me*), who recently
was deleting files.  His keyboard was a bit flaky - the "2" key sometimes
didn't type - and he used a template and deleted a whole bunch more files than
he intended to.  (I've inherited his keyboard & am interested in fixing it,
BTW.))

You are correct, in regard to my use of backups. Backups in industrial
(and government) networks are a very different matter. However, if we
distinguish *backups* and *archives*, then I think that the main difference
is in the need for the latter in those circles. In effect, my "archives"
are copied again and again into consecutive backups. 

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