Life expectancy of a burner

[SuperPickle]

What's the average life expectancy of an optical drive, particularly a burner?

I have a BenQ 800A DVD writer that is acting squirrely lately. It'll work fine for a few weeks and then become inaccessible. I can't open the tray by any means other than with a paperclip. If I take the drive out of the case and put it back in, sometimes the problem goes away for a while. Also, it seems to find the drive without problems in BIOS, Windows (XP Pro) sees the drive but can't access it.

Steps I've taken:
Rebuid OS
Replace IDE cables
Switch IDE slots on mobo
Switch power cables to the drive

Is this thing just dying? It's got over 800 burned DVDs on it so maybe it's just time to get a new one.

Thanks for any insight.

 

[bjc112]

800 is quite a few..

I'm not 100% sure.. But I thought they were good for several THOUSAND burns..

But you got some good use out of it, very possible it's getting flaky..

 

[Sforsyth]

I've had a a few CDRW drives maybe 4 of them, the first was a 4X cdr no rw at all it stopped working after about 1.5 years and then I got a new faster one it lasted like 2 months and got it replaced, another one I sold after about 6 months because I got a DVD RW it's be going strong for over a year now 4 X

And I bought a 12 X DVD RW it lasted about 4 months and died and I got it replaced with a 16 X DVD RW and I bought another 16 DVD RW both about 5 months old now.

So I'm not sure but if you burn alot like I do I'd say about 1 year.

800 DVD's burnt sounds like a good deal, I think my last one died at about 500 or so.

 

[wakawaka]

Originally posted by: SuperPickle
What's the average life expectancy of an optical drive, particularly a burner?

Not sure on the average, but I'm still using optical drives from almost 5 years ago, lol. One came from an old compaq(4x dvd-rom) and the other(cdwriter/rewriter - 16x) came from a www.cyberpowerpc.com computer I've gone through plenty of 50 stacks over the years, but no idea how many I've actually burnt. Seems like Samsung makes good drives

 

[The Pentium Guy]

My Sony drive has never let me down

 

[Tostada]

My Pioneer DVR-104 just died last week after 3 years and 500 DVD-Rs burns, but it started making a funny clicking noise instead of just dying of old age like most of my drives that've died. Those old 1X and 2X drives made a lot more heat than newer ones, though, so I can't imagine them lasting all that long.

I would think an 8X burner that isn't 2 years old shouldn't be dying so soon.

 

[Sforsyth]

The one I had that died about after 4 months and 500 DVD's didn't stop working completey or making funny noises, it stopped reading and writing DVD's some of the times and others it would burn a dvd and it would be unreadable so I made about 20 DVD's with it before I reliesed it was bad.

 

[Ze Mad Doktor]

LOL I still have and use my SCSI PlexWriter 8/20 I would say I have burned at least a thousand disks with it and it's still going strong. Only problem is the time it takes to burn something 9-10 min for a full CD so I have a 52x burner for when there is a rush.

I would say it all depends on the manufacturer as to how long a drive lasts. Plextor make (or made, this was the last Plextor product I bought) some high quality stuff. No name brands would tend to last not nearly as long I would think.

 

[Budman]

With the price of a NEC 3520a being so cheap it doesnt really matter if it dies in 6 months.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

I had an older Samsung CDr burner die on me after about 2 years and approximately 2500 CDrs.

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: Ze Mad Doktor
LOL I still have and use my SCSI PlexWriter 8/20 I would say I have burned at least a thousand disks with it and it's still going strong. Only problem is the time it takes to burn something 9-10 min for a full CD so I have a 52x burner for when there is a rush.

I would say it all depends on the manufacturer as to how long a drive lasts. Plextor make (or made, this was the last Plextor product I bought) some high quality stuff. No name brands would tend to last not nearly as long I would think.

We're talking about old DVD burners here. By the time the PlexWriter 8/20 came out, CD burners were several generations old... and Plextors are indestructable, anyway. I have an totally ancient UltraPlex CD-ROM that absolutely refuses to die.

 

[imported_DaveA]

i still have my plextor 12/10/32a. still going strong after 4 years.

 

[corkyg]

The world's first DVD recorder was put on the street in 1999. That is only six years ago. What we have to do now is define "old" in the context of this thread. I have a CD burner that dates back to 1994. Now that is what I would call "old."

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: corkyg
The world's first DVD recorder was put on the street in 1999. That is only six years ago. What we have to do now is define "old" in the context of this thread. I have a CD burner that dates back to 1994. Now that is what I would call "old."

I remember paying 300$ for a 2X burner,the only fairly cheap media was 1X,and they were if I remember 100$ for 50 DVD-R's .

talk about slow burns & expensive coasters.....

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: Budman
I remember paying 300$ for a 2X burner,the only fairly cheap media was 1X,and they were if I remember 100$ for 50 DVD-R's . talk about slow burns & expensive coasters.....

Brings back memories. I hate to admit it, but I paid close to $900 for my first 2X burner - Pinnacle Micro. Came with Easy CD Creator ver. 1.0.

I got my first DVD burner last fall - a Plextor PX708UF2. It was less than $150. A heckuva change!

My point is, there are darn few DVD burners that can be classified as "old."

 

[0roo0roo]

hundreds atleast. i've had plextor cdrw burners die at a couple hundred, and cheap no name china cr@p last longer..go figure. mechanical device, its russian roulette. not that it matters, by the timethey die, replacements cost next to nothing.

 

[SilentZero]

Ah this age old question again. The smart thing to do is not even worry about trying to figure it out, as in my experience it varies so much that a definate figure is hard to determine.

 

[Tostada]

I wish they had something like SMART for burners. I was actually really happy when my 2X burner died all at once. I've seen a lot of drives just start making bad quality burns and/or coasters when they're dying, and that can be hard to diagnose.

 

[NokiaDude]

I give it about 2 years for a burner. I used to go through ALOT of CDRs. Now I hardly burn any with my Pioneer 109. Also in 2 years the burner is most likely waaay outdated.

 

[Zepper]

I have a Plextor 4220 that has been going for nearly 5 years I'm sure and it still works fine, but I'm not talking anywhere near the numbers some of you are talking. I can't imagine needing to burn 800 disks in a lifetime, much less a year or two. And my PX-712 isn't a year old yet. Burned maybe 10 or 12 DVDs and a hundred CDs with no problem.
. Remember, cleanliness is next to godliness with optical drives. I open mine up and clean them out about every six months with special attention to the optics. If you create a positive pressure cooling system in your PC, it will help keep the dust out of your optical and floppy drives etc.

.bh.

 

[SuperPickle]

Originally posted by: Zepper
I have a Plextor 4220 that has been going for nearly 5 years I'm sure and it still works fine, but I'm not talking anywhere near the numbers some of you are talking. I can't imagine needing to burn 800 disks in a lifetime, much less a year or two. And my PX-712 isn't a year old yet. Burned maybe 10 or 12 DVDs and a hundred CDs with no problem.
. Remember, cleanliness is next to godliness with optical drives. I open mine up and clean them out about every six months with special attention to the optics. If you create a positive pressure cooling system in your PC, it will help keep the dust out of your optical and floppy drives etc.

.bh.

Ah yes - cleaning. That be something I hadn't thought of. D'oh!
:thumbsup:

 

[Arcanedeath]

I've got a 4x Scsi yamaha CD burner (note won't do RW's, yes its that old ) from the mid 90's that burned over 3k cdr's (mostly CDgs) and it still works fine, its in service in an old Celron 525 (overclocked 466) it's an office PC nowadays, the reader is a 20x plextor cdrom.

 

[corkyg]

Here's a thought. Back when I got that first 2X burner, I was given some very good advice by a very knowledgable guy. Always go external! Avoid Internal burners. To this day I practice that. I have had about 7 CD and CD/RW burners, all external. Initially SCSI, but now Firewire (a SCSI derivative.) Now a DVD burner, also Firewire.

I have never experienced a burner failure. An external Firewire burner is ideal because it does not need to be turned on unless you are burning. I believe a lot of short burner lives are internal models where they are always on regardless of need.

 

[Baked]

Depends on frequency of burns, type of media (DVD or CD), speed of burns, and temperature of burner. Burning 25 DVDs straight at >8x is not adviced. The same goes for ripping. Do not rip a load of CDs and DVDs in a role. Use it sparingly and it'll last a while.

 

[ponyo]

I've the same Benq 800A dvd burner and I've burned over 1000 dvds and hundreds of cds and it's still going strong. It was my only dvd drive on my computer so it was used for everything from reading, ripping, and burning. I recently upgraded to Benq 1620pro and moved the 800A to my projector computer where it will get less use. I don't believe in saving burners by having dvd read drive. Burners are always getting cheaper and faster so I don't see the point in trying to baby the burner.