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Affordable SCSI DVD Writers?
ByTor-2112 writes: "DVD recorders seem to be ready to break loose on the consumer market, despite the remaining uncertainty about DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM etc. I see ATAPI DVD writers, but I do not warm to IDE/ATA-based technology. When I've got a $10 blank DVD on the line, in SCSI we trust. I have been unable to locate a SCSI DVD writer that falls within the general price range (plus the usual SCSI markup) of the ATAPI burners. Firewire seems nice, but FreeBSD does not support this yet. Anyone seen a drive out there that might fit the bill?" Anyone who can lend hope on the Firewire front is encouraged to speak up here as well.
You've looked on Pricewatch right?
The price ranges for SCSI and ATAPI seem to overlap.
http://www.thehungersite.com
You see people betray themselves over this issue all the time, and it just goes to show how clueless they are.
Show me one single part of the SCSI spec that the ATA spec dosent have, that pertains to removable rewritable devices, and could possibly make burning anything more reliable. Yes, people bitch about IDE, but more often than not, its because they have not set up their channels ideally.
SCSI can have exactly the same problems! However I have seen plenty of well-setup SCSI systems, with seperate controllers for disk and for removables, and things work great. Then people complain when they expect ATA to do miracles, because they are too stupid to keep their source and their writer on seperate channels, use crappy cables, use ancient readers or disks, etc. SCSI dosent work too well with your old ST11200N on it, either you know.
Personally, I think a mix of ATA and SCSI is great. I'll keep my high-performance scsi controllers handling the disks. (Except for SCSI tape) ATA controllers are nice because they usually dont take up any slots, are perfectly fine for removables or slow mass-storage, and it keeps the SCSI chain free.
I went with a Toshiba Slot loading DVD player. I never had a problem finding it. Since there are fewer drives on the market, it is reasonable to assume that they might be of higher quaility. If someone is willing to pay extra for a SCSi then they would expct higher quaility
In any event, I think that this is a moot point. Either they already have a SCSI reader or they will simply use their writer as one. Nor do I think they care if the reader is scsi or not.