T30 - External DVD-R or DVDRW Recommendations

[MikeXRyan]

I have two T30 236692U machines, both with 1gig of RAM, 80Gig hard drive. I've worn out two Combo DVDR/CDRWs creating company moveis and burning DVD copies and really don't want to purchase a third. I need something a little more "heavy-duty" and external, possibly serial? (Are there such things?)

I'm looking for recommendations from other T30 owners on external DVDRs or DVDRWs. I need something reliable, non-USB, that will use the DVD-R format because we have a large stock of these to use up and under ... say $200 - maybe $300.

I use the current DVDR for burning DVDs of our company meetings, seminars, training sessions, etc., and it is quickly wearing out.

I do have a PCMCIA two-port USB 2.0 card but leary of going the USB route unless others with experience can convince me otherwise.

Thanks for the help!

Mike

[mysbca]

I need something reliable, non-USB, that will use the DVD-R format because we have a large stock of these to use up and under ... say $200 - maybe $300.

I do have a PCMCIA two-port USB 2.0 card but leary of going the USB route unless others with experience can convince me otherwise.

I think your only other choice for a fast external connection is a firewire PCMCIA card. The other alternative is to network to a desktop burner. I think you can buy a USB2.0/Firewire burner for less than $150 or build your own for less $100.

You can also get a third party laptop burner for $100 and adapt it for your T30. One good one is the NEC ND6650 as discussed here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=14420

[MikeXRyan]

I need something reliable, non-USB, that will use the DVD-R format because we have a large stock of these to use up and under ... say $200 - maybe $300.

I do have a PCMCIA two-port USB 2.0 card but leary of going the USB route unless others with experience can convince me otherwise.

I think your only other choice for a fast external connection is a firewire PCMCIA card. The other alternative is to network to a desktop burner. I think you can buy a USB2.0/Firewire burner for less than $150 or build your own for less $100.

You can also get a third party laptop burner for $100 and adapt it for your T30. One good one is the NEC ND6650 as discussed here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=14420

After reading/searching on various DVD-Rs (I think I'll go with just a DVD-R rather than a DVD-RW) I do have a PCMCIA Firewire card that I use for a Canon Camcorder and it works well enough. The card is a multifunctional card offering two 2.0 USB ports along with two FireWire ports (as I recall).

I'll start reading the reviews on DVD-R external firewire/USB drives. In the meantime, if anyone is using an external USB/Firewire drive I would appreciate some words on how well it performs.

Thanks for the response.

Mike

[mysbca]

I have a year old Buslink (based on the LiteOn 811s drive, 8X +R, 4X -R). It has worked very well with Firewire with my T23 and now it works very well with USB2.0 with my T43. I've used both +R and -R. I've only had a few coasters out of over a hundred discs.

[MikeXRyan]

I have a year old Buslink (based on the LiteOn 811s drive, 8X +R, 4X -R). It has worked very well with Firewire with my T23 and now it works very well with USB2.0 with my T43. I've used both +R and -R. I've only had a few coasters out of over a hundred discs.

Excellent!

I called the Plextor people and picked up a Plextor PX-712UF external Firewire/USB 2.0 external in black for just $84 (refurbished, retails for $229). Since Plextor is the manufacturer and refurbished it themselves I figured it was a good deal. The Plextor Technician assured me it would work with both DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW. The only difference is in recording speed (the + will record 12X while the - will record at 8X on DVD and quadruple that for CDRW stuff). My current DVDR/CDRW Combo records at 4XDVD/8XCDRW so the improvement will be nice.

For more info on this external DVDRW type in the brand and model number in Google and you can see all the details. The reviews ranged from very good to high and the only complaint was that it wouldn't work with USB 1.1 ports. I haven't had a chance to work with the USB 2.0 ports on the PCMCIA card with my T30 although I know the two Firewire ports work fine on the same card. The Tech suggested I try them both then added the Firewire connection will be the fastest.

I chose 2-day UPS and should see it arrive next week (Tuesday, Wednesday). I'll will report back with a good/bad review.

Thanks again to both of you for stepping forward with the quick responses.

Mike

BTW, I also picked up an AverMedia DVD EZMaker Pro (USB 2.0) package that will capture VHS tapes to hard drive in MPG2 format for burning to DVD. We have a library full of training sessions, seminars, etc., that need to be converted and placed online on our network. AverMedia offers two packages. one relies on the power of your system to do the work while the "Pro" version above uses a built-in MPEG2 hardware encoder and significantly lowers CPU usage.

I came across this item in the alt.video.dvdr newsgroup where several posters said it worked great. It is "A small, Portable Hi-Speed USB2.0 Video Capture & Editing Device, complete with Basic and Advanced Video Editing Software that allows the capture of video from any VHS or analog/digital camcorder directly to your hard drive.

I'll let you know how it works too!