Conference noted::ibmpc-95

What's the latest feelings regarding CD-ROMS?

I have a 3x speed SCSI, and was wondering if upgrading to a 16x speed 
would make any significant difference?

Also should I go the SCSI or EIDE route? I have 2 EIDE controllers on 
my mboard, so can put the CD-ROM on the 2nd one. EIDE CD-ROMS seem 
cheaper than SCSI.

Also what do you look for in a 16x CD-ROM, what kind of access times 
are good/bad/ etc?

Cheers,

greg

Upgrading to 16x would make a significant difference in your bank balance.

SCSI CD-ROM drives seem to be going at a $100 premium over their ATAPI
counterparts.

Note that not all 16x drives are created equal; some 16x drives are only
16x some of the time.

I've got two drives claiming to be 8x: One reliably transfers at rates that
you'd expect from 8x (like about 1.2MB/sec), the other about what you'd
expect from 4x (like about .6MB/sec).

While the "good" 8x is appreciably faster than the 4x it replaced -- by the
stopwatch -- I don't really see any huge performance improvements
otherwise.

    SCSI indeed adds $100+ to the cost for the 8x and above drives.
    You can get 8x,10x,12x drives for $90-100 in EIDE versions. I think the
    16x drives go for just a few bucks more in EIDE.
    
    By the way, there are a number of magazine articales which talk about
    raw speed of 'inner-tracks' versus 'outer-tracks'. Outer tracks run at
    full 'rated speed' where inner tracks seem to run slower (due to the
    varying speed relative to radius from the center).
    
    I'd recommend getting a $100 EIDE 8x,10x,12x,16x for now, and then wait
    till DVD prices come down and replace in a year or two.
    
    Mark 

    IMHO, upgrading the CD-ROM is one of the cheapest ways to shave the
    most seconds off the typical "workload".  My current favorite is the
    Toshiba 12x TM5702B... it's even faster than some of the "16x" models,
    and can be had for about that magic $100 mark.
    .02 Kratz

    Re: .15

    "workload" or "game load"?   ;-)

    Most products that actually have to run off the CD-ROM are databases or
    games.

    One man's work is another man's play!
    
    jeb  :-)
    

Are there any Web locations which have reviewed CD-ROM drives? I 
imagine you could buy a real poor performer for the same price as a 
good performer.

Greg

re:.14

The inner vs outer track thing is not true of all CD-ROM drives.

In the beginning, all CD-ROMs varied their speed to give a constant data
rate -- an audio CD player has to do this to make the music play at the
right speed.

The "Constant Angular Velocity" that causes data rates to vary across the
disc is a recent development, and used in some of the cheaper drives.  Yah,
some of those will be 16x if you ever get to the edge of the disc, but
since the data starts on the inner track, you'll probably never see the
real 16x unless you're reading the last sectors on a completely full CD.

Which is probably why my one drive that claims to be 8x really reads like
it's 4x, while my other drive that claims to be 8x reads like it's 8x. 
Same disc, same files.

Too bad the manufacturers don't have to label this -- it'd be nice to know
what you're really getting.

    I have a Toshiba 6x which is plenty fast, but I have one BIG gripe
    about it.  It seems to use a gyro to turn the CD at a consistant speed,
    but the problem is the gyro spins down after 1 minute of CD inactivity. 
    While the gyro is spinning the access time to the CD is about 180ms. 
    When the gyro spins down and I access the drive it takes about 4
    seconds to retrieve the data.
    
    Are all high speed CDROMs built like this?
    
    Jason

It's not a "gyro" - all CD drives I've seen spin down after some period of
inactivity.

				Steve

    You just never knew it until the speeds got so high that they vibrate
    the foundations when they spin up.
    
    Laptop drives spin down instantly (within seconds), and so always tend
    to have slow access.
    
    jeb
    

    You know, I kind of feel silly asking that question.  It's completely
    obvious to me (NOW for some reason) why it WOULD spin down.  I'd always
    compared it to my blazing fast 2x CDROM at work that responds more or
    less as soon as I access it.  I'm sure it's because the 2x doesn't have
    to spin as fast.
    
    Do some CDROMs spin up (significantly) faster than others?
    
    Jason

I haven't seen any tests of this particular aspect of CD-ROMs.  If I had
to guess, I'd say that a more expensive drive like a Plextor is more likely
to come up to speed faster than, say, a Hi-Val.

				Steve

    >>I'd say that a more expensive drive like a Plextor is more likely
    >>to come up to speed faster than, say, a Hi-Val.
    
    So is a HI-Val cdrom in the same category as say, Value-Jet?
    That is that it may have a higher probability to crash? :-)
    
    Bob

    The Plextor's tend to use higher quality motors, and never spin down. 
    BUT- All 12x and under CDROM drives are CLV, which means the CD speed
    has to vary as it seeks in or out on the disk... so you always have
    some spin up/down delay. 
    
    The more expensive drives tend to do this faster. Many of the 8x and
    under drives never spin down. It depends on the vendor, quality of the
    drive, how the drive is set up, etc.
    
    The ATAPI drives tend to use cheaper parts, and spin down to save the
    motor bearings....
    
    At 12X, the disk is spinning at about 6500 RPM on the inner diameter,
    which creates quite a vibration problem, and a noise issue. It's
    sometimes a relief to have the drive spin down!
    
    YMMV...
    
    Chris
    

I just bought a Plextor 12X drive, and it spins down after 2 minutes of no
activity, by default.  They include a utility which lets you set this delay
to anything you want, including "infinite", but they don't recommend that as
it could lead to overheating. 

My previous drive was a 3X, which was the fastest at the time I bought it.
The 12X makes a significant difference.

					Steve

    Another tidbit on drives...
    
    On the new HiNote VP 500 series, the CD ROM (the new combo drive that
    is mated with a floppy disk so you get both, or neither) initially had
    some vibration problems.  It now comes with a switch located in the
    platter where the disk goes, that allows you to select a mode that down
    grades the speed of the CD if it detects an imbalance.
    
    What progress!  Just like a washing machine!
    
    jeb
    

	Did anyone else just get a visual of a laptop shaking its way
	across a conference room table?

							mike

I've a quick 'Altavista' around the Internet, but can't find any 
reviews of 16x CD-ROMs.

Anyone have any pointers bookmarked?

Greg

    I found a link with some information via Yahoo, and although there
    wasn't anything obvious directly related to 16X cdrom drives
    there was other useful information in making decisions on
    the choice of cdrom drives. It did include some tests done
    on 8x and 12X drives. and did include some benchmark charts etc.
    You may want to at least bookmark this computer shopper site,
    in case they later publish an update report to include 16X
    drives. 
    
    http://www5.zdnet.com/cshopper/content/9703/cshp0015.html
    
    Bob

Thanks Bob, 

there is a link from that page called Sweet Sixteen, which looks 
useful.

Greg

I picked this up off the Internet review:

Another performance factor is the interface. On our tests, although 
SCSI drives generally had better average access times than IDE 
models, this was not true in all cases. But as a rule, the SCSI 
drives used up less of the CPU's resources, thanks to their 
bus-mastering host adapters, and therefore performed better on 
simultaneous tasks. Still, SCSI adds cost, and since most new 
computers use IDE interfaces, most drives continue to support IDE.

If I got an IDE one, I believe my Titan III mboard supports bus 
mastering drivers, so would this negate the higher CPU resource 
useage of the IDE CD-ROM drives?

Greg

    The IDE CD-ROMS's can also do DMA fi the controller supports it,
    which, for example, brings the Ziff CD-ROM CPU % test down from
    97% to SCSI-like 11%.
    K

SCSI CD-ROMs are not *always* more expensive...
I picked up at Toshiba 12X at the last KGP show
for a mere $120...

Kewl.  I'm gonna have to go to a KGP show soon!

I saw one of those Toshiba 12X SCSI CD-ROMs advertised for a reasonably low
price (~$150?), in some junk mail I got from a PC mail order place.  I
think it was about $10 higher than the 16X EIDE CD-ROM drive they listed
(also from Toshiba).