Rating: 
Summary: Fast and Wonderful !
Review: Outstanding performance from this cd-burner. A great new feature is "Burn-Proof" -- which virtually eliminates ruining CD's because of buffer underruns when writing at high speeds. This means you can continue using your PC for other tasks while the writer is creating your CD. It also takes the risk out of copying from a slow CD-reader that ordinarily couldn't keep up with this speedy new drive. This is especially great for novices who tend to waste lots of blank CD's while trying to find the best combination of settings for burning new CD's.I now use my drive mostly for creating data cd's - - storing my digital camera photos that take up so much room on my hard drive. And for peace of mind, I make a duplicate copy just in case one of the CD's gets damaged somehow. And with blank cd's costing around 35 cents (and getting cheaper), this is a cheap reliable backup... especially when you consider the alternatives. This drive plays music cd's well, and can extract songs from them easily. I have a 6-disk cd-changer in my car. Now I don't have to carry around so many cd's or switch them so often because I can create my own custom CD's that contain only the tracks I want to hear. This Plextor makes it so QUICK AND EASY to do. And I hear no quality difference whatsoever between the custom-created CD's and the original. I safely store my originals at home and don't risk driving them around the country anymore. The speed for writing to re-writable disks is 10x. That is the fastest I have seen. I use re-writables to backup frequently-used files that change (microsoft money data files, address book, software projects, email, etc.). I use my drive with Adaptec EZCD 4, and my operating system is Windows 2000. I certainly get lots of use from this reliable top-performing drive. And packet-writing is supported.
Rating: 
Summary: Good drive, bad software on Windows 2000
Review: Hardware wise the Plextor seems to be a solid drive .. it copied all my digital camera pictures to the included CD-RW disk in an instant .. the software that comes with it is another story .. the software CD lists Windows 2000 as a supported version for all the included programs but not only are they not W2K compliant, they also can wipe out all your CD-ROM devices under certain circumstances (like having MS media player and IE 5.5 installed) .. it took a lot of searching the MS Knowledge base to find the solution which was to delete 2 entries from the Windows registry .. all the software is out of date and needs patches applied and the drive firmware also should be updated .. if you run W2K I would not use the bundled software .. it's a shame Plextor chose to cripple the drive with lousy software since the drive seems to be very good .. I would like to rate it higher but the installation was too difficult to overlook ..
Rating:
Summary: Plextor = Perfection
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: The BEST EIDE CD-RW on the market today. PERIOD.
Review: I received my Plextor Plexwriter in early December 2000. To be honest, I hate EIDE burners. I have used SCSI before and the performance was better. So why would I buy an EIDE CD-RW drive? One person that I have spoken with and is extremely knowledgeable about burners has a Plextor (not this model though). He didn't have one bad thing to say about it. I heard of Plextor about 6 years ago, and decided to look into this. I read about 5 reviews of the Plexwriter, and all were good. The single detail that sold me was BURN-Proof. What this does is when the 2 MB buffer runs out during the burn cycle, the drive stops burning, and remembers where it left off. Once the host drive picks up again, the drive starts where it left off, and continues burning. I only know of 2 drives that include BURN-Proof. The high end ZipCD, and the Plexwriter, although this drive has better reviews. The last CD I burned had over 500 MB of movies on it. While I was burning at 4X (though I could have done 8X just as well), I was downloading full board on my cable modem, I was copying about 2 GB of movies across drives, looking over web sites, and had ICQ going. Let me repeat that: burning a CD at 4X (a generic CD at that), downloading at over 100K/sec, copying 2 GB of files across drives, using the web, and talking in ICQ. So how did the CD come out? Flawless. I wasn't even trying to go easy on it. My system is a Pentium II 450 with 256 MB of RAM. Nothing spectacular. So how slow was it during the burning? I didn't even notice the burn going on. The downside? The drive is expensive..... BUT I have peace of mind knowing that I can go hardcore on burning and do whatever I want with my system and burn flawless CDs. So far I have only burned a few, but they were all perfect. And these aren't expensive CDs either. A friend of mine bought a cheap... burner and won't use anything but ICQ while burning. I FULLY use my machine while burning CDs. The Plexwriter doesn't even care. Simply put, THE BEST drive I have ever used, and the drive is very quiet too. Much quieter than my old Memorex 40X CD-ROM. You decide. I'm sold on Plexwriter 12/10/32A. Keep in mind that the 8/4/32A does NOT have BURN-Proof.
Rating:
Summary: Simple elegance
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Plextor 12X-10X-32X CD-RW
Review: This CD-RW is great. I have burned several CD's and had few problems. I did have to upgrade my software from the Plextor site and install the new firmware but after that it has worked very well burning CD's. I did have a problem making a data disk with a number of photos from a digital camera. These were all in .jpg format and when I finished the disk and went back to it, it wouldn't read it. I think that I might have done something wrong. You have to be careful to follow the instructions and read everything carefully. This unit was easy to install and very easy to get up and running. One other small thing that I noticed is that most CD-ROM's wont extract the data from a music CD fast enough to allow the plextor to write at 12X. The fastest my CD-ROM will extract is about 6.5-7X which is normal for most CD-ROM's. The extraction rate is not equal to the read rate 52X for mine. So while this unit is fast I am unable to optimize its preformance unless I upgrade to a better CD-ROM. The Plextor comes with great software also.
Rating:
Summary: Fast and Wonderful !
Review: Outstanding performance from this cd-burner. A great new feature is "Burn-Proof" -- which virtually eliminates ruining CD's because of buffer underruns when writing at high speeds. This means you can continue using your PC for other tasks while the writer is creating your CD. It also takes the risk out of copying from a slow CD-reader that ordinarily couldn't keep up with this speedy new drive. This is especially great for novices who tend to waste lots of blank CD's while trying to find the best combination of settings for burning new CD's. I now use my drive mostly for creating data cd's - - storing my digital camera photos that take up so much room on my hard drive. And for peace of mind, I make a duplicate copy just in case one of the CD's gets damaged somehow. And with blank cd's costing around 35 cents (and getting cheaper), this is a cheap reliable backup... especially when you consider the alternatives. This drive plays music cd's well, and can extract songs from them easily. I have a 6-disk cd-changer in my car. Now I don't have to carry around so many cd's or switch them so often because I can create my own custom CD's that contain only the tracks I want to hear. This Plextor makes it so QUICK AND EASY to do. And I hear no quality difference whatsoever between the custom-created CD's and the original. I safely store my originals at home and don't risk driving them around the country anymore. The speed for writing to re-writable disks is 10x. That is the fastest I have seen. I use re-writables to backup frequently-used files that change (microsoft money data files, address book, software projects, email, etc.). I use my drive with Adaptec EZCD 4, and my operating system is Windows 2000. I certainly get lots of use from this reliable top-performing drive. And packet-writing is supported.
Rating: 
Summary: What a joke!
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: excellent buy
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Great CD burner, now terrific price!!
Review: 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!
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