DVD+R burner vs. media, confused

I currently have a Lite-On 411s and about 100 TY02 (Fuji from Bestbuy), 25 Ridata 4x DVD+RW, 25 Ridata DVD+R and a small assortment of other media. I'm interested in the best quality/longevity for archival purposes. Reading from other people's experiences and my own tests with Kprobe, TY02 and Lite-On do not mix well (horrible error rates by K-probe despite Nero telling me that data verification is ok).

It seems that TY02 is fairly good media, if there are better ones that cost less than 0.50 each, I all ears. It seems that the NEC 3500A is a popular choice as a general DVD burner goes. Would there be any reasonably priced drive + media combinations that are better? I've done the prerequiste searcing and reading, but the mixed reports that I am getting gives me a headache. Is NEC 3500A + TY02 a good match?

Yes TYG02 and the NEC 3500A would be a good match. IMHO the Lite-On burners are only popular around here because of scanning features. In all other respects they are inferior writers and have more media issues than their counterparts.

Hi Ray,

I have a Liteon 1633s, not same drive as you, but I also don't get very good burns on the ty02 with this liteon, at 4x theyre the worst. It does however, get very good burns on the Made in Taiwan Fuji's, which are Ricohjpnr01 discs.

My nec3500 gets very good burns on both the TY's and the ricoh discs, REALLY good burns. Between the TY and ricoh, the TY does get SLIGHTLY better burns, but the ricohs still turn out super high quality burns. I would recommend the 3500 over a liteon drive anyday.

As far as longevity of discs, I don't know about which discs would last longer. But one thing I know, is that the better burn you get, the less likely it is the disc could become corrupted over time. Burns with high error rates can sometimes become corrupted and unreadable, sometimes it may not take long either for this to happen.