Back-ups, Burning, and Boards

By Jerry Pournelle

May 9, 2005

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Column 297 (Continued from the Previous Week)

Plextor DVD Writer

Once I had Satine running properly, I installed a new Plextor PX-716A DVDýR/RW CD-R/RW internal E-IDE (ATAPI) drive. This has dual layer and multi-format capabilities, and like all Plextor drives we've employed, it Just Works.

We tend to use Nero software for CD-ROM/DVD burns, but the software that comes in the Plextor box will work about as well: the days of making two coasters for every successful CD-ROM or DVD-ROM burn are long gone—provided that you start with quality hardware and media. There are some cheaper DVD writers out there, but I don't recommend them. A DVD writer will last for years—we have one Plextor CD-R/W drive still in active use that's more than ten years old and all it has ever needed was a bit of cleaning once in a while—so the cost of quality is not very high. Get Plextor and you'll have one less thing to worry about.

Zip 100

One thing you probably won't put into your hot new system is a Zip drive. I put one in Satine because Niven and I still use Zip drives as a convenient way to save and exchange copies of our work. The ZIP 100 format is just the right size: enough disk space to store novels with all accessories like dictionaries and photo albums and research notes, physically large enough to write a label on, small enough to fit in a shirt pocket, and sturdy. I suppose one day our Zips will wear out and we'll have to go exclusively to thumb drives, but for now we have Zip and we like it.

Thus we now have in Satine two DVD drives, one read only, and one read/write. The Plextor writer is the master on one parallel SATA controller; the DVD-ROM is the master on the other string, with the Zip 100 as its slave. Once again Satine was fussy about recognizing all those: The BIOS saw each drive, but Windows XP had to be restarted twice before it got the message. Fortunately, once Satine made up her mind to do it, all was well.

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