Best combination of cd/dvd drives?

[Charles Lindsey]

Opinions on the best combination of cd/dvd drives please.

I am thinking about a standard 52/56x cd reader for installations and general use. Then a dvd drive for general dvd use and finally a multi format dvd reader/writer for creating dvd's and/or cd's.

The reasoning behind so many drives is that I don't want to wear out a writer with general use. And dvd drives are generally only 40x cd readers so that's why the triple combo but I could do with just two.

Any opinions; combos, formats, internal vs external welcome.

[Supreme Cmdr]

I recently got the Pioneer A06U, but thats a DVD -+ writer combo.

You could check Liteon. They have several top notch low cost combo drives.

[Charles Lindsey]

Thank you.

I read Tom's Hardware Guide: 11 DVD's Reviewed; 70 Tests and benchmarks Quite interesting. An off brand impressed them almost as much as the Pioneer A06.

Certain home DVD players had trouble with the dvd +R format which could cause problems making home movies.

With several www.Pricewatch.com vendors advertising CD-ROM drives for less than $20 that's a gimmee. I think I'll go with a standard CD-ROM for installs and one of the better DVD Combo drives for everything else. What I want to do is view the extra content on the movies I rent so I will monitor the dvd usage and if it's too frequent I can always add a dvd reader later.

[Ben Zwycky]

My DVD drive is slowly going the way of all matter and now is the time for a replacement. We're on a budget, but want something that'll last. Based on SC's recommendation, I'm almost decided to go for the Lite-ON SOHC-5232K. Does anyone have any objections from a reliability point of view, or any alternatives?