CHAPTER 13

Writable CDs Chapter 13
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Internal Versus External Drives
When deciding whether you want an internal or external drive, think about where and how you’re
going to use your drive. What about the future expansion of your system? Both types of drives have
advantages and disadvantages, such as the following:
■ External enclosure. These tend to be rugged, portable, and large—in comparison to their internal
versions. External drives are ideal for sharing a drive with multiple systems or especially with
laptops or notebook portable systems. Parallel port drives are very portable and supported on a
broad range of machines, but USB drives are a better choice for Windows 98 or later systems
that have USB ports.
SCSI drives are also ideal for external configurations because performance is even better than
with internal ATA drives. If each PC has its own SCSI adapter with an external connection, all
you need to do is unplug the drive from one adapter and plug it in to the other. I use SCSI
drives extensively, and with SCSI I can get the same level of performance when the drive is
connected to my laptop as when it is connected to a desktop system.
■ Internal enclosure. Internal drives won’t take up any space on your desk. Buy an internal drive if
you have a free drive bay and a sufficient power supply and you plan to keep the drive exclusively
on one machine. The internal drives are also nice because you can connect the audio
connector to your sound card and leave the external audio connectors free for other inputs.
Internal drives can be ATA or SCSI.
Writable CDs
Although the CD originally was concieved as a read-only device, these daysyou easily can create your
own data and audio CDs. By purchasing CD-R or CD-RW discs and drives, you can record (or burn)
your own CDs. This enables you to store large amounts of data at a cost that is lower than most other
removable, random-access mediums.
It might surprise newcomers to the world of PCs to see just how far recordable CD technology, performance,
and pricing has come. Today you can buy recorders that operate at up to 20x speeds and cost
as little as $100. You can even purchase slimline CD drives for laptops. This is compared to the first
CD-R recording system on the market in 1988, which cost more than $50,000 (back then, they used a
$35,000 Yamaha audio recording drive along with thousands of dollars of additional error correction
and other circuitry for CD-ROM use), operated at 1x speed only, and was part of a subsystem that was
the size of a washing machine! The blank discs also cost about $100 each—a far cry from the 25 cents
or less they cost today (if you purchase in bulk and are willing to supply your own jewel cases). With
prices that high, the main purpose for CD recording was to produce prototype CDs that could then be
replicated via the standard stamping process.
In 1991, Philips introduced the first 2x recorder (the CDD 521), which was about the size of a stereo
receiver and cost about $12,000. Sony in 1992 and then JVC in 1993 followed with their 2x recorders,
and the JVC was the first drive that had the half-height 5 1/4-inch form factor that most desktop system
drives still use today. In 1995, Yamaha released the first 4x recorder (the CDR100), which sold for
$5,000. A breakthrough in pricing came in late 1995 when Hewlett-Packard released a 2x recorder (the
4020i, which was actually made for them by Philips) for under $1,000. This proved to be exactly what
the market was waiting for. With a surge in popularity after that, prices rapidly fell to below $500,
and then down to $200 or less. In 1996, Ricoh introduced the first CD-RW drive.
Compared with either tape or other removable media, using a CD burner is a very cost-effective and
easy method for transporting large files or making archival copies. Another benefit of the CD for
archiving data is that CDs have a much longer shelf life than tapes or other removable media.