My Lite-On DVD/CD recording drive is on its lasts legs. It still reads and writes okay, but the drawer only opens one time in 20. I suppose I should not complain much, as it was about $30, 3 years ago. Recommend to me a new DVD recorder. It must be internal, IDE, and preferably in stock at newegg. I have been perusing different models here [i am not sure this link will work for other users], and I notice with some distress that most such units cost $20 or so, which leads me to doubt their reliability. I see a couple Pioneer units that are around $40. It used to be that Pioneer made excellent DVD drives, but that was years ago, and I understand they are crap now. The last Pioneer I had died far too early (just out of warranty, what a shock).

Are there any optical drives that aren't disposable pieces of crap? I hope the $300+ Blu-Ray ones aren't, but I'm also not interested in those right now. What I want is a drive that will burn data DVDs and audio CDs reliably, and last more than a year. A friend recommended Samsung to me. I like Samsung TVs, but I don't know anything about their computer hardware. What do you know, O Head-Casers?

they're only $20 so don't expect them to have much long-term reliability. you could always pay a ton more and get something from plextor but i've had pretty good luck with stuff from lite-on and lg.

they're only $20 so don't expect them to have much long-term reliability. you could always pay a ton more and get something from plextor but i've had pretty good luck with stuff from lite-on and lg.

DGMS on the P-Word. I used to use their burning drives exclusively, going back to my first 4x SCSI CD recorder. I had two of their IDE DVD burners, both of which died just a few months past warranty (which is 1 year) and I swore them off completely. I still have a 12x IDE CD recorder of theirs that worked the last time I used it. As a bonus, it gave the most consistent results ripping CDs with EAC that I've ever seen, but I digress...

I suppose you are right, the market now dictates that optical drives be disposable $20 pieces of shit. I should order two and have a spare ready when the first one inevitably kicks the bucket. Consumer culture is fucking sick.

I'm going to be zero help here, but: I like LightScribe.

I've had a range of drives in different machines over the past few years from Lite-On, LG, Pioneer and my current drive is a Samsung. They all seem to work fine. DVD burners are mature technology so they should all pretty much work OK.

I think they are mostly disposable these days.

Here's a link to a recent poll over at cdfreaks.