Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1365




Welcome to the latest in our series of Price Guides. This guide will cover current trends and products in the areas of DVD burners and hard drives. Be sure to check our Realtime Pricing Engine for the latest on product prices and fluctuation.


DVD Burners

The last time that these guides reported on DVD burners, the thought of Dual Layer and 12x drives were still more of an idea than an implementation. Today, not one but both technologies are out and showing us what they have to offer.

Now that Dual Layer technology is available, it's finally possible to make perfect 1:1 backups of everything from games to movies to anything else that you can find on a DVD and want to protect. Sony recently announced their DRU-700A model, which we recently reviewed. Going over this drive with a fine-toothed comb, it becomes apparent that DVD-/+DL isn't so different from single layer hardware as far as the chipsets are involved. In fact, some single-layer models have been shown to be flash-upgradeable to Dual Layer mode. Of course, this probably isn't what manufacturers have in mind as they build and try to market Dual Layer hardware and technology. To make things more interesting for DL, media is extremely difficult to find, let alone in any quantities or at affordable prices.

Regardless of the above factors, Dual Layer technology is here, at least for now, and if you need to be on top of things, the DRU-700A is one real way to go. With no set timelines for technologies such as Blu-Ray, it's hard to say just how long DVD-DL will last, or if it will end up becoming the new standard, but DVD-DL has time on its side, which is certainly an advantage for the technology. Of course, no storage technology can go anywhere until blank media becomes much more readily available than we have seen thus far. Drives such as the LG GSA-4120B, which seems to be capable of burning to virtually every format under the sun, may be the kind that suffers the most from lack of media availability.





DVD Burners (continued)

For those who value speed over capacity, not to mention lower costs for adoption, 12x burners may be the ticket. Plextor is, so far, the first to market with a 12x burner. Our review of this drive shows us yet again how the same, or at least very similar, chipsets and underlying guts of DVD drives carry on the tradition of being capable of much more than originally shown. The real treat with this drive comes in the form of a great software and support bundle, which includes a hugely detailed manual, Roxio Easy CD and DVD Creator, DVD Max, PhotoSuite 5 SE and Plextor's own PlexTools Pro. Throw in an 8MB cache, 48x CD burning speeds and a future version to include SATA connectivity, and you have a drive that can stay on top of technology longer than most.

In the end, the average Joe who just wants to get their feet wet with DVD authoring shouldn't be spending in excess of $80 for a burner. For this reason, the NuTech DDW-082, which earned our Editor's Choice award, deserves mention again as a great device at a very affordable price. NEC's 2500, which can be flashed easily to 2510 also sits well with us for its burn speed and ability to operate without creating excessive amounts of overpriced frisbees or coasters.




PATA

Not much has changed since our last write-up on hard drives. Prices have remained relatively idle with some models going up by a few dollars as others go down. One factor that is still alive and kicking with hard drives is the strong push by retailers for mail-in rebates in order to help generate more sales.

For parallel ATA, the recommendations this week go to the drives with the best cost per gigabyte ratio. Western Digital takes the prize in the high-capacity arena with their ATA133 200GB, 7200 RPM, 8MB cache drive. Oddly enough, the 2MB cache version of this drive sells for slightly more than the 8MB version, which indicates to us that drive manufacturers are finally starting to push off from the 2MB models with a little more effort.




SATA

Western Digital also wins out again with their Raptor series drives, which still have no rival in the SATA market. Both Raptors saw roughly around $5 come off of their price tags, which isn't much, but is certainly welcome. The 10,000 RPM spindle, coupled with corresponding seek times, make for the best performance available to IDE-based systems.

If performance isn't the key issue and SATA is the choice, Maxtor's 160GB SATA 7200RPM/8MB drive will work more than well enough for a new system or as a companion upgrade to match that SATA-capable motherboard that you just bought.


Be sure to watch for more information targeted directly at the hard drive scene as we bring new storage roundups and comparisons to you, such as "WD Raptor vs. the World."



SCSI

This time around, we thought that we would throw in the requisite SCSI technology. While SCSI hasn't been as active recently in improving its performance, capacity, or other specifications the way that some SATA devices have, the prices still fluctuate and are worth keeping an eye on if you need the reliability and throughput that SCSI devices can offer. The pricing engine does not currently track as many SCSI drives as it does SATA/PATA, which narrows this guide's range of products, but this will be changing as we add new products and improve tracking of others in the future.

If you simply need a drive from which to boot or for running a few choice applications, the 36.7 GB size drives should fit the bill. This drive size seems to stay fairly consistent price-wise across manufacturers and does not show any major changes within the last few weeks. Of course, this does depend on the spindle speed with which you choose. In any case, the Fujitsu Ultra320 models are priced very well in the 10,000 RPM and 15,000 RPM flavors and can give you that needed boost to run mission critical applications such as small databases, CRM systems, and they will work well for the enthusiast gamer or video editor.


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