General Questions about making backups

[SamIAm]

Hey everyone, this is my first post here. I bought my Sega Saturn about 1 year ago, and it has steadily been becoming my favorite system. Desperate to play some of the best titles for the console but too broke to shell out the money for some of the expensive ones, I just bought a modchip from jandaman.com. I'm not very worried about installing the chip; I have a 32 pin model 2 Saturn, it should be a piece of cake. However, I don't have a CD burner yet, and as I am looking into buying one, I question whether or not one model might be better than the other at making functional and reliable backups of Saturn games, and the occasional Sega CD one as well.

Here are the two models I am considering most:

Plextor PX-W4824A

LiteOn LTR-52246S

I know that the LiteOn is cheaper, but the Plextor comes with a nice package, so it doesn't really matter to me. The deciding factor might be which is better at making backups. What do you think? Does it really even matter?

Also, this is further down line, but I am curious as to which type(s) of CD-R's happen to be the best for backups as well. Of course, knowing which programs to use would be of help as well, although I hear CDRWin and Nero tend to be the best.

Sorry if this post is annoying, and about the fact that I am so much of a newb at this. I'm sure I can figure out a lot about all this stuff on my own, but if any of you could help me fill in some of the blanks, I would really appreciate it. Thanks for whatever you can do for me! :thumbs-up:

 

[racketboy]

just don't get cheapo no-name stuff and you should be fine.

Both burners seem fine. Lite-On aren't the greatest, but if your tight on cash go for it. I personally go to eBay to find older models to save about 1/2. I just got a 48X Samsung (good brand) for $30 instead of paying $60 for a new 52X. You can get even cheaper ones. You don't really want to burn your backups too fast anyway.

As for media. Get a good brand. I recommend Fuji or Imation. Places like Best Buy have great rebates on these brands too. DON'T get crap brands for media. They can go bad in days -- really! I've experienced this many times

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

alternately you can burn backups as fast as you want and never have problems, like me!

Pretty much any cd-rw drive you find for your pc will do the job, price just specifies how long it takes and if you feel like 1 brand is superior to another.

 

[Gallstaff]

I have a 3 year old lite-on and it's been working fine I've never had any sorts of problesm with it and i've burnt upwards of 20 saturn games not to mention music, game, video and data cd's galore.

I know they aren't great but you cant look for a whole lot in a cd burner i mean they are all esentially the same.

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

I have a 40x sony burner... that's burned upwards of 100 saturn games... as well as countless other discs. Ideally besides burn speed what you are paying for is how long your drive will last.

 

[Grifter]

Honestly, I whole heartedly reccommend Lite-On burners. Writing quality is great, and they burn very fast and accurrate in every way as most other high quality burners out there. I know I sound like a damn ad, but I really don't see any downsides to getting a Lite-On drive compared to Plextor or Asus drives. The only downside to the Lite-On drives so far is their ability for burning Protected Audio CDs....which has been improved a lot more with the newer firmware updates...but in all seriousness how many of us actually burn audio now a days from protected audio cds...not too many I think. This is where Plextor and Asus drives excel at...but with a moderate price jump.

Plus they're just dirt cheap ($40 here where I am) and if not...get a cheaper model that uses the same chipset, and flash it to the 52x model to save some cash.

I would recommend going to CDRLabs website for reviews on burning hardware.

In the end it comes down to cost in my opinion as CD-R drives are starting to get phased out slowly for DVD burners.

Sorry for ranting