Buy a Pioneer A05 DVD-R/RW?

PreacherPreacher Potomac, MD Icrontian
edited July 2003 in Hardware
Anybody have a Pioneer DVR-A05? I'm looking to drop 180$ on one at NewEgg. They have a good reputation around the Net and I only plan to use it to back up MP3s and Anime. Just trying to find out if anybody at SM has one of these and either likes or dislikes it.

Preach

Comments

  • croc_croc_ New
    edited July 2003
    I have a Toshiba 2x, not sure the model #, but its around the same price, if not less. The only problem I had was nero burning slow(1 hr, 2x should take 30 mins, no?) but the drive works great.
  • SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
    edited July 2003
    Preacher said
    Anybody have a Pioneer DVR-A05? I'm looking to drop 180$ on one at NewEgg. They have a good reputation around the Net and I only plan to use it to back up MP3s and Anime. Just trying to find out if anybody at SM has one of these and either likes or dislikes it.

    Preach

    That drive was my second choice when I was shopping around for DVD writers. I eventually went for the Sony U10A multi-format drive, simply because of its multi-format abilities. If I had decided to just get a -RW drive, and not a multi-format drive, that would be what I would have got.

    It's was probably one of the fatest drives around only a month or so ago, and now Pioneer have released a multi-format drive version, the price has dropped to make the A05 a great buy.

    I have no first hand experience, but all my research into that drive indicates its a great piece of kit to have.

    SPINNER
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    The Pioneer is often rated as the most highly-compatible drive on the market. The sony next.

    The -R format is extremely reliable with both new and old equipment, and I've personally tried -R discs from A05s on first-run DVD players and the very newest. Runs like a charm.
  • PreacherPreacher Potomac, MD Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    It looks this drive is a winner then. Anybody know a software application that will backup a hard drive to multiple DVD-RW? I've got about 225 GB that I need to backup.

    Is this a reasonable way to accomplish this? I'm also considering another drive, but that will fill up quickly with the current 250 GB max size. I could possibly use RAID 0+1 with my Promise Card, but that gets to be expensive. The drive gives me more expansion options.

    Any thoughts?
  • SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
    edited July 2003
    Most half decent backup utilities will have a backup to DVD-R function, so I wouldn't worry about that. However backing up 225GIG onto DVD's is a little extravagant, if you have that much data to backup, I would suggest getting another hard drive. That's a lot of DVD's just for one backup.
  • PreacherPreacher Potomac, MD Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    Yeah, 50 DVDs is a little excessive. I think I'll do the hard drives in RAID 0+1, but get the Pioneer after for other uses.

    Are there any hard drives bigger than 250 GB coming out?
  • SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
    edited July 2003
    Well there obviously will be eventually, don't know exactly when. If I remember correctly I think Western Digital have a 300gig on the cards.
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2003
    Preacher said
    Yeah, 50 DVDs is a little excessive. I think I'll do the hard drives in RAID 0+1, but get the Pioneer after for other uses.

    Are there any hard drives bigger than 250 GB coming out?

    Try something more like a used DLT tape drive that hold 30gb on a tape maybe. backing up to DVD's with 200+ gb is a bad idea.

    Think about maybe adding two 120gb drives in raid as a better backup solution. A little more expensive but a much better answer and you don't have to try and manualy change 50+ cd's over a couple days trying to backup. (LMAO)

    If you have a primary source for the data then a raid-0 backup would be fine. And it could be backed up regularly when you got o bed opr to work or something with no intervention.

    I have a fiber gigabit lan and I back up my scsi raid-0 to my ide raid-0 for exapmple. Then again I don't have 200+ gb of crap I need backed up regularly. Even with my MP3's I am at 1/3 your level of data to backup.

    Tex
  • PreacherPreacher Potomac, MD Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    Yeah, the more I consider it, Tex, the more I see the error of my ways. Having to deal with 50+ DVDs is way more masochistic pain :banghead: than any man should inflict on himself. And that doesn't even consider the current cost of DVD-RWs (not insignificant) or their abysmal transfer rate compared to hard drives.

    I like the RAID 0+1 idea. It looks like I'll be dropping some serious cash on 4 new LARGE hard drives......And one man's "crap" is another man's treasure! I have to feed the "Anime and Music Monkey" on my hard drive back. Thanks for the advice.
  • WuGgaRoOWuGgaRoO Not in the shower Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    whats the main difference if the dvdr has multiformat??
  • SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
    edited July 2003
    WuGgaRoO said
    whats the main difference if the dvdr has multiformat??

    It can write to the both competing dvd media standards, instead of just one of them. i.e the Pioneer drive we've been talking about is a DVD-R/RW drive, so it can only burn onto the DVD(-)R standard. A multi-format drive could not only burn onto DVD-R disks but also to the other competing standard DVD+R/RW. You also get DVDR drives dedicated just to writing DVD(+)R disks aswell. Does that answer your question mate?
  • khankhan New
    edited July 2003
    I had a friend who was going to back up his hard drive to CD-R's...i pointed out that it would take nearly 100 of them, he saw the errors of his ways and bought a new HD.
  • PreacherPreacher Potomac, MD Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    LOL!

    We both seem to have the same painful ideas about self-inflicting the most difficult methods to backup data....only difference is the degree...DVD or CDR.
  • WuGgaRoOWuGgaRoO Not in the shower Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    so its more or less..there are two formats of dvd...is one more compressed than the other?
    btw thnx bro (thats americanish for mate) :)
  • SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
    edited July 2003
    WuGgaRoO said
    so its more or less..there are two formats of dvd...is one more compressed than the other?
    btw thnx bro (thats americanish for mate) :)

    The best way to look at the two currently competing standards (DVD- and DVD+) is as if they were two different languages. They both essentially do the same thing, it's just a matter of which one will end up being the defacto standard. DVD-R was created by the DVD Forum, the body which was originally responsible for essentially creating the DVD standard as a whole. DVD+R was created by another organisation caled the DVD+RW Alliance. That company was formed in the late 90's after they split from the afore mentioned DVD Forum.

    Both formats are sound, I would say DVD-R is slightly more compatible with DVD set top boxes as a whole, but DVD+R isn't far behind in the compatiblity stakes, and is only usually hampered by older DVD players, but the DVD+R standard I think does boast better support for the more technically profficent DVD creators, but nothing really that effects the standard user.

    However, it might be worth pointing out the DVD+R disks currently on average do cost more than DVD-R disks. But that's just money right...

    Cheers
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