CD-ROM Drive Query • j********o@***.com 14/03/1997 00:00:000 UTC Hi folks: what's the fastest reliable speed for a CD ROM drive? I've seen 10 and 12x's, but they're from weird companies. Should I care about that? Gorno • g*****o@****.net 14/03/1997 00:00:000 UTC Stefan E. Jones (s******j@**.com) wrote: : Interesting question. You can run into serious compatibility problems : with some oddball drives, but this is rare. A ATAPI IDE drive is what : you want, unless you decide to go the all SCSI route (for Linux : compatibility?). : Post some names and model numbers. What may be a weird company to you : may be familiar to me. Some very big name companies (Sony, Philips) have : made really crappy drives in the past. : Note that past "8x" you may not notice much of a difference in speed, esp. : if you have less than a 486. I found a lot of the cheap drives claiming to be 8x or 12x really don't turn out to be that speed. They'll only burst at those speeds only a small portion of time. Don't be fooled by these brands. It's too bad that the 4x have completely vanished from the marketplace, they were pretty good when they came to speed and the price was right for them. I don't know of any software application that takes advantage of the premium speeds out there. --Glen • s******j@**.com 14/03/1997 00:00:000 UTC On 14 Mar 1997 04:33:24 GMT, j********o@***.com wrote: >Hi folks: >what's the fastest reliable speed for a CD ROM drive? I've seen 10 and 12x's, but they're from weird companies. Should I care about that? >Gorno Interesting question. You can run into serious compatibility problems with some oddball drives, but this is rare. A ATAPI IDE drive is what you want, unless you decide to go the all SCSI route (for Linux compatibility?). Post some names and model numbers. What may be a weird company to you may be familiar to me. Some very big name companies (Sony, Philips) have made really crappy drives in the past. Note that past "8x" you may not notice much of a difference in speed, esp. if you have less than a 486. -- Stefan +-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ ***@***.com ~ s*****s@a*****.***u.edu ~ s******j@**.com http://www.ini.cmu.edu/~sjones/ CHARGES APPLIED FOR UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL EMAIL! • David Cholewa 16/03/1997 00:00:000 UTC j********o@***.com wrote: > Hi folks: > what's the fastest reliable speed for a CD ROM drive? I've seen 10 and 12x's, but they're from weird companies. Should I care about that? > Gorno Well, nowadays it doesn't matter all too much what the "x" speed is. As soon as you get past 4X, you shouldn't pay attention. What you really need to look at is the access time (a number recorded in milliseconds on CD-ROMs), which is basically how long it takes the lazy drive unit arm to move to the disc and start giving out the data. You don't need to look past 6x or 8x (I have an 8x, and do notice a couple improvements in general quality). Just ask whoever you're buying from what the access time is. Anything over 180ms is pure crap, and you should generally restrict your search for 140ms or less. For the record, the inexpensive ones reach a lower limit of around 115-120ms. The one I got was 125ms, and ran about $110 (an incredible deal at the time). Manufacturer was Teac, and I recommend them heartily. They're one of the big companies, and have nice options. -JC Anyway, because this is an sf newsgroup, I'll add in a little thing here to keep the conversation on topic: TNT and JMS (Joe Michael Stracynski) have agreed to show a two hour TV movie called "Babylon 5: In the Beginning", somewhere in early 1998. More info will be mentioned along with this week's SF Forum TV Night Newsletter! • a****4@f******.********n.ca 17/03/1997 00:00:000 UTC Stefan E. Jones (s******j@**.com) writes: > On 14 Mar 1997 04:33:24 GMT, j********o@***.com wrote:   >>Hi folks:   >>   >>what's the fastest reliable speed for a CD ROM drive? I've seen 10 and 12x's, but they're from weird companies. Should I care about that?   >> > Interesting question. You can run into serious compatibility problems > with some oddball drives, but this is rare. A ATAPI IDE drive is what > you want, unless you decide to go the all SCSI route (for Linux > compatibility?). Linux, since 1.2.13 has been very stable for all CD-ROM interfaces,ATAPI/ide, Soundblaster/psuedo-IDE, and SCSI. But, no matter what speed the drive is, the two real thing that have to be looked at is access speed, and throughput. IDE, being just a glorified version of ST-506 will *always* suck on throughput. A SCSI 4x will beat a IDE style 4x for sustained throughtput everytime. So, for playing CD-ROM movies, multi-media applications and CD copying, you would do best going for SCSI. If it is just for installing applications and the occasional game, a 4x IDE will do most people well. For server type applications, where you might have multiple people accessing the same CD-ROM drive, SCSI, and as fast as you can get is best. That goes for *nix flavours (including Banyan), Novell Netware, OS/2 LANServer/WarpServer and SAMBA. Supposedly, NT's SCSI support bites the big one, so SCSI is slowed down to IDE speeds. But it is a Microsoft product, so what can you expect? > Post some names and model numbers. What may be a weird company to you > may be familiar to me. Some very big name companies (Sony, Philips) have > made really crappy drives in the past. NEC has consistantly made excellent CD-ROM drives over the years. They have both SCSI and ATAPI/IDE interface versions of most of their drives. > Note that past "8x" you may not notice much of a difference in speed, esp. > if you have less than a 486. Depends on the Operating System. Under Linux, you would. Under Windoze, nope. ttyl Farrell Novell Guru, Linux Adept, OS/2 Guru. • j********o@***.com 18/03/1997 00:00:000 UTC Thanks for the info. Here's some more background: I intend to use this drive (for now) to get access to programming software titles on CD-ROM (and avoid the mountain of floppies needed for them otherwise, when available). I might want to dabble in multimedia programming, but am not bothering with the expense of a sound card and speakers at this time, nor will I likely to play any CD-based game on my PC (486 DX). So, do I really care about random access speed? And, how do I weigh this against transfer rate? Also, why should I care about the AT API/IDE question? Will the IDE simply allow me to take full advantage of VESA? What is the API, anyway? Is it the standard CD routines in mmsystem.dll, or simply a set of standard AT drive calls for the CD (presumably in the driver)? As with most consumer computers, price increases as the square root of performance, which is always annoying, as I'm a cheap/poor bastard. I've only seen a few drives in my techno junk mail that exceed JC's crap standard! Bearing in mind my needs, consider what I've seen/considered: a 2x/450 ms Panasonic drive (proprietary card) for 40$, a 16x/100 ms "Hi Val" AT API/IDE for 200$, a 6x/220 ms Creative IDE for 80, a 4x/230 ms Mitsumi IDE for 60$ (the same at 6x for 90$), a 10x/120 ms Techmedia AT API/IDE for 100$, and a Lieton 12x/155 ms IDE. I'm going to go out and look in the Computer Shopper for Teac drives, but examining the the above list with my competing criteria, the two most appealing ones are the cheapo/garbage Panasonic and the decent sounding, invest-for-tommorow Techmedia... Gorno • David Cholewa 19/03/1997 00:00:000 UTC j********o@***.com said some of this stuff: >...I intend to use this drive (for now) to get access to programming software titles on CD-ROM (and >avoid the mountain of floppies needed for them otherwise, when available)...So, do I really care about >random access speed? And, how do I weigh this against transfer rate? Also, why should I care about >the AT API/IDE question? Will the IDE simply allow me to take full advantage of VESA?...As with most >consumer computers, price increases as the square root of performance, which is always annoying, as I'm >a cheap/poor bastard. I've only seen a few drives in my techno junk mail that exceed JC's crap >standard! Bearing in mind my needs, consider what I've seen/considered: a 2x/450 ms Panasonic drive >(proprietary card) for 40$, a 16x/100 ms "Hi Val" AT API/IDE for 200$, a 6x/220 ms Creative IDE for 80, >a 4x/230 ms Mitsumi IDE for 60$ (the same at 6x for 90$), a 10x/120 ms Techmedia AT API/IDE for 100$, >and a Lieton 12x/155 ms IDE. I'm going to go out and look in the Computer Shopper for Teac drives, but >examining the the above list with my competing criteria, the two most appealing ones are the >cheapo/garbage Panasonic and the decent sounding, invest-for-tommorow Techmedia... Excuse me, but you've been kind of rude. Your question asked on the newsgroup was: "what's the fastest reliable speed for a CD ROM drive? I've seen 10 and 12x's, but they're from weird companies. Should I care about that?" You DID NOT ask what was the SLOWEST reliable speed or the CHEAPEST reliable speed. I answered your question with a valid, correct answer: That the "X" speed rating is more or less pointless after a certain point, and the faster CD-ROMS are the ones with lower access times. Okay, so if your question is what the fastest reliable speed is, why the hell did you turn right around and say that you thought a 2X 450ms drive is better? Your question had NOTHING to do with price!!! You asked about SPEED! Please don't change your question _after_ you've ASKED it!!! ...and I *didn't* give you a "crap standard". I just told you what the fastest reliable speeds are for CD-ROMS (of course, the only mistake I made was assuming you meant for a PC, but it's not really that different otherwise, anyway). very mean post. -JC And, to keep this post on topic: Hey, guys...TV Night is Wednesday, and I'm bringing over a lot of stuff for y'all! A compelling first half of a two parter X-Files, a very strange Simpsons (but then, aren't they all), and a plethora of reruns of all the usual stuff!!!