Optical drives are becoming obsolete with hard drive storage and thumb
drives so inexpensive. Optical drives are also much slower and with the
coming of a National broadband agenda and net neutrality soon to be
pushed heavily by our new administration... Also, you can convert your
DVD collection to iso format and use Demon Tools Lite to mount it in a
virtual optical drive and use your favorite media app to watch them.
AnyDVDHD can also rip BlueRay to disk for the same purpose.
I bought into HDDVD last year because of the heavier use of DRM with
BlueRay and got burned last February when Hollywood and Tochiba threw in
the towel. There are an increasing number of BlueRay rentals in my area
now but I've been waiting for the price and compatibility issues to get
better. But even BlueRay's days are numbered if you believe the
articles. They say that if BlueRay wants to succeed it needs to be as
cheap as DVD and I don't think that will happen for quite some time. I
really like to go to the video store and check out the latest rentals
but those places are probably on the way out.
DHSinclair wrote:
Scott,
If you do not use optical drives, what do you use? A wee bit confused
here!
Yes, I have played with JMicron's driver(s). It appears that they do
not work well in w2ksp4. Mybad; completely. I do use my optical drives.
I have not converted to USB or whatever for basic I/O yet......... :)
Thanks,
Duncan
At 17:11 11/21/2008 -0500, you wrote:
Sounds like you're pretty much on the right road.
I don't know about you, but I virtually never use my optical drives
anymore. That's why I don't mind my dvd drive running with the PATA<-
>SATA convertor.
Sheesh seems like just yesterday that 1x/2x CD-ROMs were all the rage
and what a big difference that 2x made! And those annoying little
caddies? I figure somewhere after 20x it stopped mattering quite as
much :)
Have you tried installing JMicron's drivers?
Scott
On Nov 21, 2008, at 4:09 PM, DHSinclair wrote:
JB,
To your 1st, I'd tend to agree, my check today looks like ~$25-$40
for opticals like Samsung/Lite-On........? I now have 5 current
pata opticals (4 AOpen, 1 some generic), they all work, so I'd like
to continue with them, if at all possible. Unless, any of the newer
SATA specific opticals offer better performance that my current crop.
As for pata hard drives, I have 2. Both Seagate 160GB. So far, one
is running well w/converter. One still has to be converted.
Agreed, I am pinching pennies here. Any/all new hard drives will be
sata. Any/all new opticals will be sata.
Thank you,
Duncan
At 20:56 11/21/2008 +0000, you wrote:
for $19 or so each for convertors surely you're better off just...
buying new optical drives that are native SATA?
For that matter, how large are the PATA disks you're planning to keep
in service?
On 21 Nov 2008, at 20:51, DHSinclair wrote:
OK, I now own 6 Sabrent SBT-SCIDE sata/eide converters. 2 are in
use. 1 is now suspect. 3 remain untested.
I spoke with Sabrent today. They have no technical knowledge of
their own product. Freely admitted that this product is a cheap
knock-off of other "more expensive" products in the pipeline ATM.
Bummer.
So, what are these other "more expensive" converters? I have a link
to HyperMicrosystems for $19 each, but it clearly states that it
only works with hard drives. I am looking for reliable converters
for both hard drives and cdrom/dvdrom/burner that are pata-based.
I will test the rest of my stack tonight. Newegg and I will settle
up next week if necessary.
Thank you,
Duncan
