NEC ND-1300A or Cendyne External W/ ND-1300A?

[fordlife]

Alright People, I am New and have been reading old posts for days now. I found, like everyone else, the Cendyne External +/- burner at Costco.com. I read that this has the NEC ND-1300a drive in it.

For $302 shipped to my door that seems like a great deal. However, I have a 3-4 year old Sony Vaio with firewire on front and back and USB 1 and worried if anyhting is going to go wrong.

Also, I can get the NEC ND-1300a bare OEM drive on ebay for $200 and then install it in my a Firewire/2.0 case. This would total to about $250-$275 with shipping. Still seems like the Cendyne is the way to go, everything done.

Whats the software like with the Cendyne? I basically want to backup my DVD movie and take them to college with me and play in my Xbox.

Thanks
RC

[Ian]

CenDyne software:

Nero Express
Nero Vision Express
InCD
Sonic MyDVD 4
WinDVD 4

If you go with an OEM drive, you can forget about getting any sort of tech support from NEC. You want to RMA the drive? Forget about it...

[burninfool]

I always buy retail boxes when it comes to computer hardware.As Ian stated the extra cost is worth it for the software,media and tech.support.

[onlyCOpunk]

Whatever you think is the better deal. I have an ND-1300a and am very satisfied with it, although I'm not running it in a firewire set-up.