Sony DRX-840U 20x External Dual-Layer DVD Burner Review

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(More customer reviews)I have had an external burner for quite some time. With recent changes to my environment, I no longer had a Firewire port so I decided to switch to a USB 2.0 external burner. I had gone to Fry's, purchased another well known brand that was an 18x burner, brought it home, set it up, Windows XP Pro did its thing and all seemed right with the world. That was until I actually tried to use it. No matter what I did, Nero V7 and V8 saw it but refused to use either DVD+R or DVD-R media. I did the normal searching for solutions but none presented itself. After months of trying to get it to work, I finally gave up and decided to try another vendor.
In my searching on Amazon, I ran across this Sony drive and noticed it was one of the first to offer 20x burn speeds. The 20x burn speed, while certainly nice, was not what attracted me to this. Rather, it was the fact that, at 20x, this meant it was a relatively new design which meant it should work better. In my searching to resolve my previous external drive's problems, the Sony drives were always lauded by those that had used them. A combination of those two things gave me at least some confidence that this was a good drive.
When it arrived, I did the normal thing and Windows was happy with it. So the acid test: what would Nero think about it? As it turns out, Nero V8 was quite happy with it and worked flawlessly with the drive. I have burned DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-R DL and CD audio all at the rated speed, all without any problems, all with perfect burns.
Pros:
- It just works without any problems
- Nice case design
- It is happy both vertically and horizontally
Cons:
- Somewhat noisy when the CD/DVD is burning at full speed
- Slower burn speed on inside tracks but speeds up as it moves out
Bottom line: if I had to do it all over again, I would. The drive got me what I was looking for: something that works reliably and dependably. It certainly gets my recommendation.

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External USB 2.0 DVD+R Double Layer, DVD-R Dual Layer/DVD+RW, DVD-RAM 12X DVD+R Double Layer (DL), 20X DVD+R,8X DVD+RW, 12X DVD-R Dual Layer (DL),20X DVD-R, 6X DVD-RW, 12X DVD-RAM 48X/32X/48X CD-RW, 16X DVD-ROM Buffer Underrun Protection Technology

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