ALDI DVD Burner, 3rd March

The_B_Man

http://ireland.aldi.com/

I'm considering getting this for my PC at home. Specs are Intel Smelleron 450Mhz, 64mb Ram, Win 98, 10Gb Hard Drive. quite old tbh. All the more reason to get more storage. but im not good at telling if a DVD burner is good or not as i have very little experience in this area. can anyone advise me to whether its worth it or not and if Aldi hardware is reliable! thanx.

Aldi Site wrote:

Take advantage of DVD storage with this top specification multi format dual layer EXTERNAL DVD burner. Burns DVDs in both 'positive' and 'negative' formats. A single DVD will hold 8.4Gb of files, ample storage space for movies, images etc.

Write speeds: || Re-write speeds:
40 x CD-R, || 40 x CD-RW,
16 x DVD-R, || 4 x DVD-RW,
16 x DVD+R. || 4 x DVD+RW.

Also burns and reads CDs! Complete with manufacturer's three year warranty, customer helpline number, Nero burning software (OEM version), firewire cable and USB cable.† Check pack for warranty details. The warranty may be available via the distributor.

kinkstr

Its Record speeds are good but keep in mind the burner will only be as fast as the dvd+/- media you use,4x or 8x are the only kinds ive seen available around,if your going to be using it for backing up your films it wouldnt be reccomended to burn faster than 8x anyway, if i didnt already have a dvd rw id probably get this one

Diddy Kong

never mind that make sure your copy of win 98 actually has usb support or even firewire(on a machine that old) ... it could take forever to copy a full dvd at usb1.0 speeds...compared to the speeds of usb 2.0/firewire

The_B_Man

well im planning on gettin a

[P4 2.8c][Zalman 7000-Cu][Abit IC-7 G][512MB PC3200 DDR][Antec Super LanBoy Case][Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800 Pro][2 x Seagate Barracuda 120GB][Sony DVD+/-RW][LG CD-RW][Hauppage WinTV Card]

2nd hand for €150 so hopefully that has USB2! hehe no seriously im gonna attempt to get it upgraded by summer. if i get more RAM and a bigger HDD i can stick WinXP on it so then it'll be fine!

Diddy Kong

if your upgrading you can get a new internal one from komplett for €59 cheaper than €99

The_B_Man

ok thanx ill consider the internal one also.

duridian

I'd have to agree with DBFarrell on this, no point in getting an external drive if you will be getting a system which has an internal one already. Just get another newer faster internal and flog the existing one to cover part of the cost. Externals are really more of use to people with laptops where a similar internal drive would be considerably more expensive (as is the case with most mobile components).

The_B_Man

well i probably wont be gettin a brand new system, just upgrading the ram and hard drive on the one i have at the mo. ive been lookin on komplett for DVD burners. is there any that u know of that stand out at the moment? im lookin for in and around the specs of the aldi one. i like the sound of that dual layer feature so im looking for similar. thanx.

unklerosco

Win xp on a 450mhz cpu... not good, will be dog slow

The_B_Man

well i have another machine runnin xp. P3 450, 128mb ram, 10gd hd and its super fast. minimum specs for XP are p2 233mhz, 64mb ram and a few gigs free!

unklerosco

I find my gfs 2.4 celron slow... damn fast pcs tainting my perception(fancy words!!)

The_B_Man

well smellerons are usually sh*t anyway, but its most likely all the crap u have installed thats slowin it down. although, im not sure if my pc wud be actually able to handle the DVD burner. it doesnt give a minimum spec needed on the site!

darraghrogan

Got the drive in Aldi Thursday morning - seems to be some sort of Samsung IDE Drive according to the box.

Looks like this: http://www.samsung.com/Products/CDDVD_Writer/DVDRRW/CDDVD_Writer_DVDRRW_TS_H552B.htm

Damn thing won't burn under OS X but reads perfectly.

Nice setup - you could even buy the kit just for the drive.

Darragh