I had a Toshiba 32x that was the best CD Drive I ever owned. I've since replaced it with a Toshiba DVD drive, and I've had problems where the disc starts spinning insanely fast, only so it has to spin down (in several steps) before it can read the disc. It's pretty annoying.
I also had a Sony 32x that had horrible spin-up times, and was pretty dodgy with certain copy protection systems, but it would read any disk no matter how out of round it was.
If you're going to buy a CD burner, I recommend a 16x10x40 Plextor, or my own beloved 40x12x48 Lite-On. Both are outstanding burners and good CD-Roms.
