Combination DVD & CD readers and burners: worth it?

[beforewisdom]

Hi;

I was thinking of buying a combination DVD/CD RW.

Have these things progressed to the point of being of good quality, and at what price?

What would be the best choice for knoppix?

Steve

[OErjan]

actually i think a combo drive is not a 100% choise, on a laptop OK but for the cost of such a drive I would get both a decent cd-burner and a separate dvd-reader...

a dvdburner capable of burning cd-r, cd-rw, dvd-r,dvd-rw, dvd+r dvd+rw and dvdram. costs about 90€
a combo dvd-reader/cdburner costs about 60€.
yes i know, 30€ is not just small change, but it is money well spent in my opinion.
otoh those combos are better than a dvdreader (about 32€).or cdburner only (30€).
but as you can see you get both for about cost of a combo drive,
that would give you more options. like booting knoppix on dvd-reader and using burner... you choose.
kindly OErjan

[j.drake]

Depends upon what you want to do. DVD burners are dirt cheap now. Even the HP top of the line +/- /R/RW DUAL LAYER DVD burner goes for under $100 US, even on HP's website!! (http://www.shopping.hp.com/cgi-bin/hpdirect/shopping/scripts/home/store_access.jsp?product_code=Q6750A%23ABA&template_type=product_detail&script_name=product.cgi). That's up to 8.5 GB, and compatible with everything! (If the link doesn't resolve, go to hp.com, and look for the 530i)

jd

[eco2geek]

I recently got one that reads and burns CDs and DVDs for $60 at Fry's. It doesn't do DVD-RAM but it does do CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+/-R, and DVD+/-RW. Top DVD write speed is 8x, and I think they're trying to clear the shelves for the 12x burners, is why it was so inexpensive.

It's a no-name brand (BTC -- here on Outpost.com (http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4105013), down to $50 now) -- and it works great with Knoppix. Comes with Nero 6, too.

It runs Knoppix live CDs (and DVDs) fast enough that there's almost no lag time, which was always the most annoying thing to me about them.