Hi, I'm new to elementary sound recording with Macs. I'm hoping to find an
external CD-RW drive to work with a 2400c PB (or 1400c). It will have to be
SCSI, since I have no port upgrades. Are there specs I should look out for,
brands I should avoid? I will be using the drive to copy audio-recorded
files to cd, mainly for transferring to iTunes on a--choke--desktop PC
that is used with an iPod. (I'm using the laptop because the stereo system
I'm recording from is too far from the PC, plus I love using the PowerBook.)
Do I have to be sure that the SCSI drive is SCSI-I? Is there an adapter that
would make a SCSI-II drive work with the PBs' port?
Thanks for any experiences you might have to share that could help with this
setup.
The 1400c and 2400c impose different limitations on the scsi device. The 1400 doesn't support version 4.3 of SCSI Manager, which means that you'll be limited to something like 2x write speeds if you want to avoid creating a lot of coasters. The 2400 will go much faster. Max speed is limited by things like how much cache you allocate (more is better), how fragmented the source file is, and whether you shut down all unnecessary apps during burning (things like file sharing or other networking apps, screen savers, and the like are all great at causing problems).
SCSI-II devices are supposed to handle SCSI-I connections just fine. Some
SCSI-II devices have a different connector (but not all). In those cases,
you'll need an appropriate adapter.
As to brands, there are actually very few manufacturers of raw drives. I
haven't had any particularly bad luck with any of them, so I'd say the main
criteria are cost and how much mileage the unit has on it. The write lasers do
wear out over time, so if you have a chance to try before you buy, it's a good
idea to do it (do an actual write test, not just a read test). The quality of
the blank media is important, too, so stick to name brand media and you'll
probably be ok. I regularly encounter external CD writers for under $5 that
work just fine with my SE/30. You should have little difficulty finding
something suitable and reasonably inexpensive for your 1400/2400.
--
Prof. Thomas H. Lee
Center for Integrated Systems, CIS-205
420 Via Palou Mall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-4070
http://www-smirc.stanford.edu
650-725-3709 voice, -3383 fax
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