Hi, I'm looking to buy an external DVD writer drive soon, but without being up to date with the different DVD media available, I don't know which to pick. I've been looking at the Samsung TS-E552U and the LG GSA5163D at ebuyer: Samsung LG Does anyone have any good suggestions or alternatives? My price limit is about £90.
Well, the only really new format is the dual-layer (DL) 8.5GB. Everything else is just faster speeds of the existing DVD+-R/RW and DVD-RAM. I'm a big fan of DVD-RAM, so I'd be inclined to buy an external 5.25" chassis and put in the LG GSA-4136 drive. You could also get the 5120D or 5163D external enclosures, both of which support DL and DVD-RAM. LG are a great brand, and often have more performance for your money than Sony or Plextor. Samsung are in the same category of price/preformance. If you don't already have a firewire port on your box, get a PCI adapter. On my system, firewire is a lot more stable/reliable than USB2.0.
TBH I always reccomend anything pioneer regarding dvd-writers the main reason for this is that most blank disc manaufacturers test their wares on pioneer drives, so it seems logical that pioneer should be the drive of choice! 16x dual layer drives seem to be coming down in price b y the day atm, you should be able to find a good external usb2 or firewire drive for a reasonable price at MD or Komplett (main ones I use) laters
