New optical drive suggestions

My heart is almost 100% set on the drive below but i thought id come here for some wisdom might change my mind ya never know

Anyhow im giving my partner my current pc im on the lookout for a new optical drive, i've always been a great fan of LiteOn drives,
i've never had a single problem with one of there drive since i've been using them so i would prefer to get another one if possible.

The only one that looks interesting at the moment is the current new 20x one from LiteOn here, LA20A1P so unless anyone can
persuade me to buy something else for whatever reason then i think im going to go ahear and buy that one from overclockers.uk

I just bought an LG at newegg for $30. Works great.

I'm building a new system over the summer though and I noticed that most new motherboards only have 1 PATA connector. I usually like to run 2 optical drives, a DVD burner and a regular DVD reader. I never run them on the same channel either because PATA just doesn't have the bandwidth to do that sucessfully. The plan is to use my PATA burner over again, then get a SATA DVD reader since they are relatively cheap. I've tried my DVD burner on a Promise PATA PCI card and it doesn't want to work.

The transition to SATA optical devices seems a bit clumsy though because I've heard mixed feelings about the newest SATA optical drives, and the issue with motherboards having only one PATA connector these days.

Ahh yes i totaly forgot about sata drives, that changes things i planned on buying that drive a while ago just before i
heard of it's arrival from liteon and since it's been released i figured that now would be a good time to buy it and try it out.

I just did a quick check around and there is the LA20A1S which as far as i can tell is the same drive but sata?
I might be wrong though so heres the link: http://www.liteonit.com.tw/global/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=26&Itemid=67



I wouldnt mind the change to sata, even if it was just to get rid of those flimsy ide cables we all love to hate

yeah, SATA drives are cool. Only problem is that they have been rather pricey in the past. But if more manufacturers are jumping on the bandwagon, then I'd think the price should be getting better.

I think you will have a hard time getting a good optical drive recommendation. People can only recommend what has or has not worked for them in the past. Optical drives are kind a tough thing to give a real great recommendation because they are all pretty well the same. Just try to get the fastest one from a brand you trust and hopefully that's good enough.

Personally, I've always bought BenQ DVD drives and had great luck with them. But I'd think a LiteOn, Samsung, NEC, Pioneer, or Plextor would be a good pick.

Oh yeah, I forgot that my last one was a Plextor. It was an SATA drive. And was quite nice, but was also quite expensive.

jivetrky said:

Just try to get the fastest one from a brand you trust and hopefully that's good enough.

Click to expand...

Thats exactly how i normaly buy them i thought id ask this time around though for a change
plus at the moment for roughly £15/£30 here in the uk it's not exactly the hardest decission to make!

Yeah, I'd say go SATA if you can find an affordable one. It's nice not having to deal with PATA and jumpers and fat cables and all that other stuff

There's not really a performance difference, it's just the installation.

Although, if you have a PATA harddrive already on the same connection, you can hinder performance of the hardrive with the optical drive.