Best DVD Reader Drive?

[krdu]

This may be a silly newbie question but I have been searching here for two days and can't find the answer. Actually, I have been searching the internet for close to a week without success.

What internal CD-DVD reader (NOT BURNER)will read all formats? It will be installed with a MSI DR8-A2 for writing.

I found a cheap $17 drive which specified seperatly all formats except DVD-RAM. Unfortunately, when I tried to purchase it, it was not in stock. Then, I have found maybe four posts here where members state they have found the "perfect" drive. Unfortunately, they did not give the make/model.

My criteria is as follows:

Reads all standard CD disks including photo disks

Reads +- R/RW

Hopefully, reads DVD-RAM & DVD-ROM

---> FAST FOR DAE <---

At least 48X read for CD

As fast as possible for DVD

Under $20

Yeah, the last WAS a joke.

Anyone help with this?

[andyp1]

I found a cheap $17 drive which specified seperatly all formats except DVD-RAM

Unfortunately, they did not give the make/model.

Neither did you.

[krdu]

Yeah, that is true, but neither did the merchant.

The drive was listed under the house brand of MicroX. I suspect that it is an Acer drive but am not sure. The merchant is real bad, took my money and never even notified me that it was out of stock. Now I have no drive, no money, and don't even know the make & model to purchase it someplace else.

[makntraks]

Either way for $17 you'll get what you pay for..... in my book that spells junk....

makntraks

[krdu]

Here are the specifications from the website. From these specs it fits the bill perfectly. I assume that it is a recently discontinued model. The object was not really to save money (although that is nice) but to get a drive that will read all formats. You can see from the specifications that at least it is ADVERTISED as reading all formats.

====================================

Price: $29.89
$17.89 (On Sale)

Product Details

Data Transfer Rate
DVD-ROM: Max. 16x max. (21,600 kByte/s)
CD-ROM: 48x max. (7,200 kByte/s)

Access Time
DVD-ROM: 110 ms
CD-ROM: 90 ms

Mechanism Internal 12/8 cm CD and DVD drive (half height form factor), motorized tray load mechanism for horizontal and vertical use, emergency eject

Interface IDE/ATAPI

Burst Transfer Rate PIO mode 4/Ultra DMA 33 (max. 33 MByte/s transfer rate)

Cache Memory 512 K Byte

Audio Headphone jack and volume control in front and digital-out and line-out at the back (MPC compatible)

Compatibility
DVD-ROM: UDF, single and dual layer, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, PC2001, RPC-2
CD-ROM: High Sierra, ISO9660, CD-Audio, CD-ROM (mode 1 and mode 2), Single- and MultiSession Kodak Photo CD, CD-ROM XA, CD-I (FMV), Video-CD, Enhanced Music-CD (CD+), CD-Text, MPC Level 3, CD-RW read (in compliance with MultiRead spec.)

Weight 0.8 kg

Dimensions (H x W x D) 42 x 148.2 x 170 mm

[indolikaa]

Asus DVD-E616P1 @ http://usa.asus.com/products/optical/dvd-e616p1/overview.htm

The only thing it won't do is read DVD-RAM.

[smearbrick1]

Lite on makes a pretty nice dvd-reader that reads just about everthing I thrown at it.

... also matches nicely with my liteon 451s.

[krdu]

Asus DVD-E616P1 @ http://usa.asus.com/products/optical/dvd-e616p1/overview.htm

The only thing it won't do is read DVD-RAM.

I checked that out and that's great! It clearly specifies +- R/RW which is the most important thing and if I can't find something better by the end of the day I will purchase it. Thank you.

Now, anyone else know of one that will read RAM also?

[krdu]

Lite on makes a pretty nice dvd-reader that reads just about everthing I thrown at it.

... also matches nicely with my liteon 451s.

OK - but what's the model number?

I checked out this drive but I am not sure what it reads.

Lite-On 16X DVD-ROM Drive, Model XJ-HD166S, OEM

Model# XJ-HD166S

[lordsmurf]

Pioneer DVD115/116/117/118/119/120/121
Sony
BTC (burner or ROM)
LiteOn

ROM drives only, no burners