CD Writing

[Dicky]

Hi Dudes!

Please let me know what's the minimum hardware configuration for writing CD's with an IDE CD writer.
68030+16MFast would be enough or not?
I would like only to backup my stuff, so I need to write only few Cd's.

Thanks Dicky!

[Paul_Gadd]

68030+16MFast would be enough or not?

Yes, If the drive supports burn proof then backing up files on the fly will be fine but without burn proof you would have to make a image file of the data then burn the image file.

Get more memory though but otherwise you can burn cds on a 030.

Just use a CD-RW and test different settings and if the cd messes up then erase it and  try again, trial and error is the way to go  :-)

[mendark]

HI!

I used to burn my cd's with my A1200 and blizzard 1230@50mhz. The amount of memory should'nt be such a big issue since MakeCD uses only a few Kb so the rest of the memory can be used as buffer (10mb is fine). Do you have an IDE controller?
I have a Powerflyer which let me burn at the max of the writer which was 4x. I even could burn 128kbps mp3s on the fly at 1x :-o

It's a bit dissapointing post if you don't have an IDE controller ;-) But on the other hand I can predict major problems on the A1200 controller although I think you can't reach more then 1x 8-)

TIP: When you use MAKECD (=a must) make sure you have enough Chipmem, set all priority's to high (in icon) and set the chunksize to 512. This should work :-)

bye,

[Mad-Matt]

An 030/50 will happily write at a Max of 8x in TAO mode on the A1200 controller using software such as Idefix to help it along. Although probably safer to drop to 4x for on the fly writting of lots of small files,  unless you have huge chunk of memory for buffer.

[Floid]

(...and here I am, struggling to trick MacOS 9.x into reliable burning for the past few days... If anyone knows what Mac/Toast "Error -9356: The link is unstable" *really* means, PM me. :evil:)

Anyhow, the drive I'm using is basically an Acer/Benq 52X24X52 with Seamless Link and OPC, and one thing I've noticed during stress-testing (in this setup, burning MP3s with on-the-fly decode, whilst bogging the system down with UI context switches and the like) is that it *seems like* each new 'link' (buffer-underrun recovery) forces another test in the CD's power calibration area - and if you're as cruel to the burning process as I've been, again *seems like* it's possible to use up all 100 slots before the end of a burn!  I'd be more certain if I'd read the sense-code popup before dismissing it.

Anyhow, this is an argument in favor of picking a sane burn speed for your system, versus *just* letting Burn-Proof/JustLink/Seamless-Link handle it while running the drive at max speed.  (Also, not all drives and media claim to support all write speeds, which can get a bit interesting... for instance, Toast has been trying to warn me off 1x writes, though they progress fine- I'm not sure if that means my drive's firmware starts at 4x, or just that my '48X' media doesn't claim to handle 1x burning.)

...and for me, the headaches keep me in favor of sticking with inexpensive magneto-optical drives (and cheap unused media off eBay) for archival.  (Downside of those: unless you can speak UDF- which Linux/Windows/BSD only now have begun to support- you'll have to stick with FAT for interoperability, and you do have to figure out how to partition/not-partition the media for highest compatibility.)  If anyone else finds that option interesting, PM and I'll give a good rant.

[Effy]

My experiences with burning cd's on a 68030 are these  ...
1) an IDE controller is indeed necessary. I had a Powerflyer with 20 Gb hd and a scsi Plextor 4x2x20 and 96 Mb of Ram from which 85 Mb was used as buffer. If you plan on burning lotsa small files of games or demo's then a lot of buffer is needed.
2) an IDE rewriter needs to be able to burn at a speed of 4 or slower. After my Plextor I had a Philips model 803 8x4x32 but it refused to burn at a speed that I wanted it to burn and so it burned at maximum speed, which meant that the burning process consumed to much processor power that the harddrive could not keep the buffer full enough and so I got only buffer underruns. I tried to burn CDRW's at a maximum speed of 4 and this worked fine.
3) to burn from scsi to scsi is the easiest. If you don't have both, try to get one of them, like a scsi hd and a ide rewriter or vice versa.

[Varthall]

Dicky wrote:
Please let me know what's the minimum hardware configuration for writing CD's with an IDE CD writer.
68030+16MFast would be enough or not?
I would like only to backup my stuff, so I need to write only few Cd's.

I've successfully burned many CDs with a recent 40x16x40x burner and my 1200/030@50 with 16 megs. On a SFS partition and with the internal IDE controller i've managed to reach around 8x speed.

Varthall

[Karlos]

Has anybody tried an IDE CDRW on one of those SCSI-IDE bridge things? I ask because, presumably with a decent SCSI controller (anything for a phase5 accelerator) would have no problem burning CDs at any speed given the DMA controller.

[Effy]

Eh Karlos, I got such a IDE to SCSI controller at the fair in Cologne last December but I still haven't used it. It may be difficult to attach a cdrewriter because the controller is actually made to attach a harddrive ... but a 'scsi' harddrive that burns to a ide cdrewriter will work also I think ...

[Jiffy]

I use a Blizzard 1230-IV with SCSI-expansioncard and 64 MB ram. No problem copying cd's on the fly from cd-rom to cd-burner at the burner's maximum speed of 4x.

Burning files from my internal harddisk to cd is no problem either, although I expect for faster transfers you should need a decent IDE-controller.