I/O Magic 52x24x52x CD-RW Drive

[Erik]

Micro Center is advertising the I/O Magic 52x24x52x drive this week for $29.99 after rebates. I'm working for a guy who wants a CD-RW in his painfully slow PII 350MHz. Anyone know who makes this drive? I'm currently working with a Memorex (flashed to Lite-On) 52x24x52x drive that I picked up for $15 and it's been the greatest drive ever. He doesn't need something special but I bought a Verbatim (I think it was a Cyberdrive) 48x12x48x from OfficeMax and it was the biggest piece of junk ever, ended up returning it. I can't really search for a good BUSlink deal for a Lite-On because I'm going over tomorrow night and don't have the time to order it so I'm planning to take him to the store. I'm also advising him to get a memory upgrade (he has 64MB) because the Windows 98 I formatted on is already crashing on him, in his words. Anyway, any advice on this drive is great. Thanks.

[aviationwiz]

I'd also like to know. Because if it's a Litey, I might get one.

[Erik]

I doubt it's a Lite-On because if it was, we would hear about it. It's always on sale at places like OfficeMax. I don't need anything special, but from my experience with the Cyberdrive Verbatim, I think I'll stay away from anything that hasn't been really tested here. The guy is hiring me, and his computer is already "crashing" (who knows why) so I'd like to keep anything bad away from it. Information for the CD-RW is below:

http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0149261

[Erik]

I did a little research and came up with this. According to CNET.com, the I/O Magic looks like a BenQ drive and it got a fair rating, but so did my Memorex Lite-On so I don't really trust them. Anyone have any information about BenQ drives? I've never been exposed to them. I picked up some images on CNET.com to compare.

Picture of BenQ Drive:
[/img]http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/20827115/ovr/20827115_2_front_300.gif[/img]

Picture of I/O Magic Drive:
[/img]http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/20827169/ovr/20827169_2_front_300.gif[/img]

Looks pretty identical to me. Only thing they say about the I/O Magic is that it doesn't come with Nero or Roxio, but that's not a big issue since I can put my own copy on. Reviews of both are below:

BenQ: http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-10 ... =pdtl-list

I/O Magic: http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-10 ... =pdtl-list

Sorry if I'm a newbie, why won't my images come up? Someone care to enlighten me?

[aviationwiz]

Get rid of the / in the beginning of the url.

Example:

Should be:

[ img]http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/20827115/ovr/20827115_2_front_300.gif[/img]

instead of:
[/img]http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/20827115/ovr/20827115_2_front_300.gif[/img]

(No space between the [ and the /)

[cfitz]

More exactly, get rid of the slash at the beginning of the opening [img] tags (leave it for the closing tags). It should look like this:

Code: Select all

Picture of BenQ Drive:
[img]http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/20827115/ovr/20827115_2_front_300.gif[/img]

Picture of I/O Magic Drive:
[img]http://a.r.tv.com/cnet.1d/i/uff/20827169/ovr/20827169_2_front_300.gif[/img]

To result in this:
Picture of BenQ Drive:


Picture of I/O Magic Drive:


Both of those are definitely BenQ drives. The row of slots along the bottom is the dead giveaway.

Personally, I've had great success with and am quite happy with the Memorex/LiteOn drive I own. On the other hand, the two BenQ drives I have used were quite poor quality.

One other point. Just because the I/O Magic drive shown in the picture is a BenQ doesn't mean you will get one also. They rebadge and sell drives from a variety of manufacturers, and the manufacturer they use is subject to change at any moment.

cfitz

<edit>
Oops. I see aviationwiz edited his post to clear up his explanation while I was typing my post. It is still a little bit misleading though. There should not be any space between the opening square bracket "[" and the "img" tag identifier. Otherwise you will get what aviationwiz's post shows - text rather than the actual image.

Grrr... even using the 'code' tags it is still somewhat misleading because of where the display put the line breaks. Those aren't real line breaks after the URL and before the closing 'img' tags. There shouldn't be any spaces or line breaks between any of the tags, tag elements or the URL.

If you want to edit your post as well you can do so by clicking on the button above and to the right of the post's text.
</edit>

[Erik]

I'm also a happy owner of the Memorex/Lite-On drive. I picked it up for $15. Anyway, I think I'm going to have him try the I/O Magic but if he has trouble I'll take it back and return it. I'd rather not have the deal with ordering online since I'd have to use my money then have him pay me back. My next question is, will a PII 350MHz with 64MB ram run a 52x drive well enough to burn at all? I'm planning to have him pick up a memory upgrade. That's my third question. What is the maximum amount of RAM I can put on his computer? It's an old gateway. Personally, I have two other Gateways in my family, one being a PIII 450MHz and the other a PII 400MHz. I both have them running with 192MB RAM with no problems out of sticks I've gotten out of old computers. Should I get a 128MB stick or 256MB stick? I think I'm leaning toward the 256MB stick plus the 64MB he already has. Thanks for the advice.

Edit: I just thought of a great idea. Couldn't I open up the box once I buy it, check to see what it is then if it's not something I want return it? We'll see what happens. I guess that a computer as slow as his won't even benefit from such a fast drive anyway so there will be more problems with the computer than the actual drive.

[burninfool]

Win9x/Me doesn't benefit with over 256MB of RAM unless his 'puter is a server then go 512MB,the price differance between 128MB and 256MB is like $15USD.AFAIK a faster IDE HDD(7200RPM) & chipset(ATA100/133)will improve write performance but his motherboard is probably ATA66.