A Good DVD-DL drive?
 

Yeah, I'm having trouble spotting myself is a good dual layer DVD drive. There's only a couple at NCIX, and apparently (according to some customers) those drives aren
t that great. Does anyone know a good dual layer DVD drive, preferably for under $30 but no higher than $40? It has to be black too :bleh:

Pioneer imho is the best you can buy and last forever.

+1 on Pioneer.

:thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

Pioneer, next up would be a Sammy

I only ever once strayed from LG drives (just for curiosity sake) and that was with a Sammy. Unfortunately after a while the Sammy wouldn't burn DL's, no matter what I did (bios update etc). Went back to LG and never had a problem.

Most, if not all, DVD burners will do dual layer, so why the OP is saying there are only a couple at a place like NCIX is puzzling to me.

The ones I have had the best luck with are Plextor. The latest one to be installed is their PX-B310SA Blu-Ray ROM/DVD & CD burner, about a week ago. It has done a few DL burns flawlessly. Quiet, and fast.

I also have a PX-716SA that been a real workhorse, with more DVDs and CDs through it than I would want to count. Somebody at blankmedia.ca is going to retire on my orders.... :)

Between the time of the PX-716SA and the PX-B310SA, Plextor got to rebadging other brands rather than building their own, so some were not so great. I understand that the PX-B310SA is also a rebadge from another manufacturer, and if you knew which manfacturer and exactly which model, I think you would be getting a great drive for a bit less than what you pay for the Plextor version....far as I can tell, Newegg.ca has the best price for the PX-B310SA, undercutting other online retailers by as much as $40.

I also have an LG 22X DVD burner in my system, and it has been OK.

My system has four optical drives - Plextor PX-B310SA SATA, Plextor PX-716SA SATA, LG 22X DVD-RW SATA, and Plextor 5224 CD-RW IDE.

Well normally in the title/part name it would say "Dual/Double layer" or just "DL" but most DVD drives I've seen just don't have that, I look on specs a bit further down the page and not many say "Double layer" or "DL" or anything like that, so why are you saying that there are so many?

So Pioneer it seems has one of the cheapest ones, from reviews I'm reading it seems like a solid drive, going to look into what Sammy has to offer.

Plextor, I know, Is (for the most part) a quality brand, but only THEIR brand is quality brand, not all the stuff they've been re-badging!

Just to illustrate, have a look at this page:

Canada Computers - Your Neighbourhood Computer Store and Service Centre - PC Systems and Hardware Components, Notebooks, Electronics, and more.

Every drive there burns to DL. Some say "DL", some day "Dual Layer", and some you have to open a page for the product to see the DL burn speed.

These days, anything that burns DVD burns +R, -R, and DL.

^^In that case, I'm looking in the wrong place then I guess. So I was wrong about the availability of DVD-DL drives, but what's a good one, i.e, NOT a $60+ re-badged Plextor.

Once again.

Pioneer.