Need DVD Burner Advise

[Grumper]

Im getting a Plextor Internal 8X write DVD dual format IDE Burner. I might opt to put it in a 5.25" enclousure with USB 2.0 interface, thats that.

My question is if I wanted to go with an Internal Install which drive would I be better off taking out to make room,fpr the Plextor.
1] The LiteOn DVD Rom---or---
2] The LiteOn CD/RW--I have a second HDD so having 3 optical drives is not appealing to me.

Im aware the Plextor does it all--Whats the best match up.

Thanks

[Budfred]

I currently have 3 hard drives, a CDRW and DVD internal, so I got external USB 2.0 enclosures for my DVD +/- RW and 4th hard drive. I could have switched them around any other way, but why bother. If you want to retire one of them, I would probably go with the CDRW and install the DVD RW...

[Grumper]

Budfred ---If you want to retire one of them, I would probably go with the CDRW and install the DVD RW...[your words] Im not too clear on what your suggesting--I will install the new Plextor on IDE 2 as Master and leave the existing CD/RW as a Slave---is this what your suggesting????
and take out the existing DVD Rom ----having 2 basicly 2 CD/RW`s wont create a conflict when it comes to the actual burning of a disk???

[saphalline]

I would take out the DVD-ROM drive, and have the Plextor DVD burner and LiteOn CD-RW drive as my two internal drives. My reasoning for this is simple: the DVD-ROM drive can only read disks and is therefore not as capable as the other drives.

No, you can have as many CD-RW drives as you like. The burning software will allow you to choose the drive(s) you want to burn with (usually by drive letter).

Just one more thing - if you have two burners on the same IDE cable, I don't recommend trying a disk-to-disk copy. Not that I recommend that anyway :p but if you want to, put the burners on separate IDE cables.

[Grumper]

Thanks for the reply guys. If I do put the DVD burner and the CD/RW on IDE1 and IDE2 as slaves and my 2 HDD`s as masters, wont that degrade the speed of the HDD`s in that situation ? If you select disk copy in Roxio 6.0 arent you burning disk to disk then, and if so how do you get around that??

[Grumper]

I also have a 5.25 USB 2.0 enclosure , might that be a better way to approach the situation--like I wont be burning DVD`s a great deal, this way it sort of saves the optical parts of the Plextor, by having less hours , rather then leaving it in the main network of the IDE drives and just using it as a everyday drive, as I keep disks in both drives to play various games.

What Think????

[Budfred]

Your last post would be my first choice. Keep the DVD RW as an external drive.

If you decide to remove a drive, I was suggesting to remove the CDRW since you probably only need one RW in the machine at a time. However, saphalline's logic works too, that is why I would just go with the external option rather than worry about which goes where....:D

[Grumper]

Thanks for the input Budfred and saphalline ---I think going with the encloseure really sounds like the way to go.

As always thank you for your opinions and your efforts.

Grumper