My Burner & Purchasing an External Hard Drive

[Sir Jig-A-Lot]

1. My Cd/Dvd burner has been acting damn weird & it think may be broken. Here's the shituation:
A couple of weeks ago I ran out of blank dvds (which i use to store & backup my data), so wifey kindly bought me a 50 pack & i proceeded to go a burn my latest downloads...I went through 4 dvds freezing up the process before i realized something was up. I've heard from others that when it comes to blank media in a huge pack there are always a few bad apples in the bunch, even though it has never happened to me before this. i figured it might be the new brand (LG) i was using. so i went & bought a 25 pack of another brand...same thing happened (however I did notice that burning to CD-R was fine). I thought my burner program (Roxio 6) might have corrupt files as when i recently installed the latest AVG a dialog box came up saying Roxio might not work right with AVG. So. I uninstalled & re-installed Roxio & removed AVG. it still fucking froze up!more discs wasted!
Then i remembered vaguely from my first year in my IT course my Hardware teacher mentioning something to the effect that DVD burners have 2 separate lasers. one for CD/CD-R & another one for DVD. Could this be the case?!? & is there a way to verify for cetain?..Would you guys say I need to replace the DVD drive?!?

2. Another thing on the cards would be that i finally bought myself a 1TB External Hard Drive, thereby negating the need to burn shit to disc to create more drivespace for newer downloads. i've had my eyes on one near my crib that's going for AU $299. It's a Freecom (apparently they've won awards for their drives) 1 TB external. though i have been told that what's actually in the casing are 2 Western Digital 500GB SATA drives bound together. is this possible? it looks like it only has room for one..
here's the link for it: http://www.freecom.com/objects/00012831.pdf
Do you AF'ers have any other recommendations brand or modelwise? my budget is AU$300. $350 max.
Thanks guys.
btw i want one with the Aluminum or metal casing. those plastic cases looks mega flimsy & breakable.

[AYHJA]

First things first, I haven't burned anything w/Roxio for maybe 12 years...When they stopped playing nice with Windows a while back I turned away...I'd consider removing that and replacing it with another program...It's bloated as fuck, but Nero has been getting it done for a long time...Before I write off that burner, I'd try that first...

[Sir Jig-A-Lot]

oh i forgot to mention, i did try it with Nero Express after i did the uninstall on Roxio. still nada.
btw i know it's bloated as allfuck. since i've had the program, never once have i ever installed the full thing. i only install 2 things out of 7 or 8 items: Creator Classic & Disc Copier. that's all i've ever used or need from it. i don't need Audio Central or Photo Suite or DVD Builder & whatever else it has.

[AYHJA]

Ahh, OK, well if that's the case, you may have already fixed that problem...Does the DVD burn fail simulation..?

[Sir Jig-A-Lot]

you mean like a test burn?!? it always says ERROR WRITING TRACK if that helps.

[AYHJA]

Well, that pretty much cancels out the chance of it being related to the media...You Sir, need a new burner...Especially if there are no other pertinent issues on your PC...Wait, I do seem to recall that you didn't have much drive space on your PC, there is an off chance that it could be related to that if its the case, but I don't think so...

On to the next thing..! I've never had a problem with Plextor...They may be more pricey, but they kick ass, are fast, and Plextor is always on the cutting edge of technology...I am going to buy a new external drive soon, but rather than something so huge, I'm going to go with the smaller 320GB Western Digital Passport drives...It's small and sexy enough to put into a front pocket, and 80 GB larger than the HDD I have in my computer...I figure that's plenty big enough for me to store my stuff on, and if it starts to get full, I'll just get another...It's only about $125, and alot easier to store and manage than 80 DVD's...

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=391

I may invest in a bigger drive like the one you're talking about, but to be honest, that's too big for me...I'd be scared shitless that I'd store all my data on that thing and if something happened, I'd be a fucking wreck...

The only thing about that drive you're looking at that caught my eye was that it only has an 8MB buffer...An 8MB buffer on a drive was a good deal 8 years ago...These days, most modern day drives have buffers twice that size or more...The dimensions listed do suggest that there are 2 drives inside, probably in some sort of JBOD configuration...I'd prefer a single drive solution...It may not be the most cost effective in comparison, but failure would be harder to deal with for me...

I'm going to do the new external/DVD mix until I can build my home server, that way I'll feel better about throwing huge HDD's in it so I can better monitor their health with software...

[Sir Jig-A-Lot]

Ah well..A new burner it'll have to be then.

I don't believe they sell Plextor in Oz, Ja. not as far as i've been able to see or search. instead we have a brand called Maxtor which i don't trust. As shiny as they look, I know at least 2 people who've bought one & had their files wiped. S'funny you mention the Passport drives as when i was searching out drives on saturday night, i stumbled onto them & briefly flirted with the idea. The ones i saw were Imation though. are those WD ones linked above plastic encased? they look like it?
Yeah, i didn't like the buffer percentage on the Freecom one either. esp now that it does look like there are 2 drives in the casing. If i go the Terabyte, I gots to know my files are mad protected up the wahzoo!.

[AYHJA]

I found a WD 'Book' external for $100 USD flat...500 MB too...And they look sexy on a bookshelf...That's some shit I can see getting full, and me just storing it neatly on my bookshelf rather than stack them on my desk...Or, stacking them on my desk in an orderly fashing...At that rate, I'll have $200 p/Terabyte, can't beat that...A Terabyte is more data than I've had on all the harddrives I've ever owned in a computer combined...I could see myself putting all the shit on my current externals on my Book drive, and then storing my DVD's in storage as they become older...

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?s ... caid=17902

Check it out...I've seen a price for that one a few bucks cheaper already...

[zaphodz]

This may not be something you have looked into or are interested in but I thought I'd show you:

http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=92

Basically you buy this device, chuck any size hard drive in it, and you can access all your files over your network. Also, it does bittorrent downloading and standard file downloading by its own - so you can turn off your computer and let the device do all the work.

I'm investigating getting one for myself since I like to torrent stuff. It would also be cool to stream stuff to my PS3.

[AYHJA]

Interesting device zap, that may be a doable solution for me in the future...I wonder how much cheaper it is than to just buy an external...I could see myself getting one of those later on and putting a 750 in it...