Sony DVD+/-R/RW 12X4X12X EIDE 4.7GB ( DRU540A )

Rating:
Summary: Best DVD writer of the bunch (and I tested a lot)
Review: By the time I finish writing this review, this drive will probably be obsolete as new dual-sided DVD's are already hitting the market. That's ok, though. As you know, it saves a lot of cash to stay a step or two behind the newest and greatest computer gadgets, plus you're less likely to run into problems as bugs are slowly worked out.

Finding a good DVD burner turned into quite a chore. As the speeds have increased, it seems a lot of manufacturers have been pushing out these drives without testing them. Of the number of brands I tried, many cheaper drives were quite problematic. A few didn't work at all following installation. The only two drives I tested that I can recommend are this one and a TDK model drive with similar specs.

This drive works very well with the included Nero burning software. Nero also has an option that verifies the written data to make sure the burn came out ok. This is a great new feature most other burning software does not have. I'm a little disappointed that Nero's Disk Quality Test does not work with this drive, though. I believe it's a problem with the software, not with the drive, and I've been going back and forth with Ahead Software, the makers of Nero, to try and get it fixed.

Even though this is an 8x drive, it's capable of writing at 12x speed using compatible DVD+R media. This is a mindboggling amount of data, 16,620KB/sec or the equivalent of a 100x CD burner. At 12x, you can fill a 4.7GB DVD in about seven minutes and verify your data was written correctly in another six.

The drive has a light grey color that happens to match the color of my case perfectly. It will probably look out of place in a standard putty or black color case so keep this in mind if aesthetics is your thing. Compared to TDK, both drives performed great with name brand media. With cheap no-name media, this drive seemed to have problems writing to cheap CD's whereas the TDK drive had problems writing to cheap DVD's. Since everything is heading to DVD storage, and because this drive is much quieter than the TDK model, Sony ends up the overall winner in my book.

Hope the review helped.

Rating:
Summary: Works Beautifully like 510A
Review: I had Sony 510A for a long time, and then gave it to my friend recently. I was very happy with Sony 510A so I purchased 540A few weeks ago. I never had any problem with 510A, nor this 540A so far. I never ever wasted a single CDR or DVDR, I am very satisfied with this product.

Rating:
Summary: Sony DRU-540A
Review: I purchased this drive a week ago, and it failed from the beginning (unreadable disks, multiple failures using Sony's drive check utility). I contacted Sony customer support and learned that the support was worse than the drive. The first customer support rep was arrogant and did not know the product. Sony then requires customers to wait 24 hrs. after sending test results to Sony before they would even talk to a customer regarding the problem, therfore it was another day before I could speak to customer service after making recommended changes to the system. Look at other drives before purchasing this one.

Rating:
Summary: Great DVD burner!
Review: I'm running Windows XP on a Dell Dimension 4500 with 768 MB of RAM. The Sony DRU-540A installed like a charm. No problems whatsoever. The Nero Software that was included with the drive is wonderful... I used to do most of my burning using Roxio's EZ CD Creator 5, and I've pretty much abandoned that at this point. I've burned CD's with no glitches, and approximately 80 DVD videos with only one coaster. This drive has worked great for me!