Laptop DVD Burner

[Pyrotechnic]

I have a Dell B130 laptop. At the time of purchase I wanted to get the DVD burner but funds didn't allow so I just get the standard CD drive in it. It came with a 24X CD Burner/DVD reader combo drive and it works great.

I'm looking at getting a DVD burner now but I've read that laptop DVD drives dont work as well as desktop DVD burner drives in terms of speed even though they are advertised to be 16X. Is this true ?

Also, I have a feeling that the way this laptop is setup, both the hard drive and optical drive are on the same IDE channel. In the device manage it shows only a primary IDE controller.

I have an external 16X burner that will work reliably at 4X through USB 2.0 and finishes a full DVD in 12-15 min depending on the number and size of files.

Will an internal laptop DVD burner do at least this especially with the shared IDE channel I have or should I just keep the external setup?

 

[Xenocide]

my dell dvd drive *will* burn at 8x but i never do it because even with a 5400rpm hdd i get buffer underruns if i dont' let it sit still.

i say just use the external, will save you some $$, because an internal will give you no speed improvements.

the laptop drives can only read at 16x, burn at 8x only on high quality disks in my experience

 

[Pyrotechnic]

Mostly it would be just for convenience, since I have an external hard drive as well to carry around. As long as the internal laptop style drive can do the burn at 4X comfortably without buffer under runs and finish it in 12-15 min just like the USB 2.0 can then I will be happy.