Sony DRX-530UL External DVD+RW/CD-RW 8X Drive 40X/24X/40X

I bought this burner one year and two weeks ago. The bad news to me is it's a one year warrenty and the drive just went bad two days ago. The year I had it I probably burned about 100 good discs and 30 bad ones. Sometimes It worked great and other times I fought with it. A year ago I paid $130 for it and expected it to last a whole lot longer than it did. Now I have to look for a replacement. If you buy this burner I would suggest an extended warrenty to cover yourself. Good Luck !

I have two of these (actually the very similar DRX-510UL model). I have burned dozens of DVDS on both drives with no problems. This is a very reliable drive. I have avoided Sony products in recent years since they are often overpriced, but I stumbled upon these on sale and I have been very pleased.

They run very cool and extremely quiet. Just be careful when you install the included software. Much of it is unnecessary and can cause conflicts with some of the popular after-market burning software. I use this drive with both 321 Studios software and Nero 6 Ultra Edition.

I recommend you stick with media manufactured by Taiyo Yuden. This includes Panasonic DVD-Rs and the Fuji DVD-Rs made in Japan. Be careful, some of the Fuji DVD-Rs are made in Taiwan and are not Taiyo Yuden. You can also pick up non-branded Taiyo Yuden DVDs from a variety of e-tailers including Amazon. This is a dual format drive, but I stick with the DVD-R since I have never had a problem.

I have produced only a handful of coasters and the burned DVDs have been tested and played accurately on over 20 different types of DVD players.

I have heard some people say digital is digital and all DVD media are created equal. This is not true. You want to buy DVD media that is manufactured with quality. You might save a few cents buying a cheaper DVD; however, you have to factor in bad burns and lost data. With the cheapo DVDs, you will have more coasters and more DVDs that initially burn fine, but lose the data after a few months. After all, many of us are archiving data / video we will want to be able to access for decades into the future.

You might want to take the time to Google and then download a free utility program named DVD Identifier. You simply put your recordable DVD media into your computer's DVD writer and DVD Identifier will tell you who actually manufactured the DVD (many of you might be surprised the brand name on the disc and the actual manufacturer are often different).

My units also came with all the necessary cables (three types of USB / firewire).

As far as the disadvantages:

1.) There are faster writers available nowadays, but this is fast enough for me and faster burns can lead to more errors.
2.) There are dual layer drives available nowadays, but dual layer recordable DVD media is still pricey.

The included software, RecordNow, has some problems to work with AOL. I have several DVD+R discs damaged when these conditions are all true:

1. AOL is connected
2. RecordNow is burning DVD.
3. Using Laptop and the Windows "Close the lid of my laptop computer" option is set to "None".
4. Close the lid.

This problem is definitely repeatbale.

I bought this product based on SONY's reputation, and first I was quite pleased. But after 4 month it was not able to burn any CD anymore. And this is similar to other SONY products I bought (DVD player etc). SONY, do something to increase the quality of your products. Until this is done, I go for other brands.

Sony has pretty good reputation for consumer products, but this drive has been bad news! The first drive was dead on arrival. The second drive died a month later only after burning 10 CD-Rs and less than 5 DVD-Rs.

Try getting an RMA...I had to deal with the support center for 3 days, first to get told to run a drive check utility, wait 24 hours for them to process, then try to get an RMA. THATS 3 days just to get an RMA!!!! Oh! The best part is they wanted another drive check with a firmware upgrade to 2.1c from 2.1a, that's another 24 hours.

All said, I have spent over 3 months without really using this drive given the time it had to ship UPS ground!

If you value your time...stay away from this deal.