Sony DRU-720a DL drive

Pros: Absolutely everything about it

Cons: Very few times it stalls (possibly through overuse)

Summary: I really have no reason to write this, but after seeing so many bad reports about this, I have to spread the facts about it. First of all, I should explain what type of tools used with it.

I have a Compaq Presario computer, 2.6 GHz of Celeron CPU, 1 Gig of RAM (although it has worked perfectly when only half that amount was available), XP, and use the Nero toolkit. I don't care about not having all of Nero because it hasn't failed me yet and all I really need are burning, image-to-disc, and backup capabilities. My computer is average overall, less than the normal recent computers because of its processor, motherboard, and outdated onboard video.

Prior to working with this, I have used a USB DVD-RW burner. I strongly recommend not getting these, even Sony's, although I didn't use their's but someone else's. The reason is that data doesn't flow as fast even with firewire, and the ribbon cable/motherboard is more than enough to power it all up. Every single DVD was wasted due to this, and only about two in the twenty DVDs used were correct until I've reached a certain file.

This DVD burner was next in line because the honesty of salesmen at CompUSA told me to get it (not to advertise about this store, though; I know each franchise is different, but Vacaville's is amazing). I sometimes burn twenty-thirty dvds a day, and I haven't had any problems whatsoever except that listed above, which I will talk about soon. There was not a byte or bit wasted as far as I could tell, and the software works great with it. Even at multi-sessions I haven't had a problem except the obvious one of which the DVD cannot be played with a stand-alone DVD player, or at least the second session and beyond.

The only con I had about this is that sometimes while backing up files it goes into an infinite command loop. I am not sure if this is a hardware or software problem, but think it is software because right after when I try again, it works perfectly. I hadn't turned off and cold-booted my computer for days, so probably it would be the problem in the RAM since it keeps the residence after prolonged use. This only happened about twice out of months of use and hundreds of DVDs burned, and only before I added more RAM into the computer.

I haven't tried a DVD-9 yet because it's less reasonable to me than buying Sony DVDs wholesale. Hopefully the prices will go down so I'll get one, but at the moment I'm not in the position to even try one out. I'll update this if this happens. As for the DVD+R, it goes a bit over eight minutes to be copied, and for the smallest copy it could be up to two minutes. The difference I believe is too small to even recognize since there's great benefits toward this, and I even can run small programs while doing this, although it comes slowly (suggestion: do not run heavy processor-leeching programs. Although they will run, any burner in the world will slow down the process, and most will waste the copy. I haven't seen this in mine, but it probably will due to its burner nature).

Hopefully this helps a couple people. Most of the time when people say it doesn't run right is because their own computer isn't capable of it and goes too slow or the processor is being too used up. I'm not a tech, but I think you should at least log off a few programs and look at task manager to see how much is being used.

This is it. Sony has done a great job at managing their product effectively, and I believe nothing can top this product's reliability. I know nothing can in my book at least. Thanks for reading, and enjoy yourself.