Life-Span of Optical Drives

btspm

I have seen a lot of people buying DVD-ROM drives in an attempt not to 'wear out' their DVD burners. Is the life-span of a DVD burner really that short?

What exactly is the life-span of a burner? (specifically I have an LDW-851S) I've searched spec sheets for some sort of laser-hours rated statistic, but I doubt the manufacturers would want to be nailed down to a hard number anyway.

And what component(s) generally fail first? I once had a no-name OEM that came in an old Dell crap out on me once, but I didn't have the experience (probably still don't) to figure out just why it died.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge with this noob.

bluGill

In theory yes. In practice a burner will still last long enough that you won't care.

How much do you burn, and does your burner support something weird that you wish to save? For instance if you have a burner that can write DVD encryption keys you want to save that unit (AFAIK none can) for only writing disks that you want encrypted since you never know if you will find another.

OTOH, DVD drives are so cheap that it no longer makes sense to try to save it. By the time it wears out you will be lusting after at least a 16X drive, if not blu-ray. And the price on the new drive will be ~$50, cheap enough to not worry about.

drewstylz

I don't know how cd drives compare to dvd drives but I've had my lite-on LTR-32123S for almost 3 years now and I've done at least 3-4,000 burns and it's still running strong. I know many people report that their cd-rw drives stop working after a couple hundred burns but maybe they don't provide proper cooling to their computer innards? Anyways, I recommend lite-on products because I've had good experiences and I expect their drives to last a long time.

pchilson

Knock on wood... or your next burn will be your last...

drewstylz

Btw, I only burn CD-Rs at 16x too. I find 40x to be too cumbersome on my poor P3 600mhz and I've also heard the quality is not as good though I haven't gone back to test any of my cds (as I had no knowledge of these forums and tools back then). The difference of a few minutes is also negligible for me. That could be another reason why it's lasted so long for me.

digitaldoc

My Iomega (Plextor rebadge) 12x10x32 has lasted over 3 years. It was used very actively over the first 2 years, less in the last year. I'm not sure one should extrapolate the cd-rw experience to dvd writers- there are many differences in the end. In addition, the newer computers seem to run hotter than the older chips.

__________________
TechNudge Live

Plextor 760A
Plextor 740A
LiteOn 1693S
Samsung Writemaster W-164
BTC 1008
BTC 316
LiteOn 52x24x52
LiteOn 52x32x52
Benq 4816P
HP 7200e

cynicalbastard

can also factor in cheap power supplies to early hardware death, as well as a lot of other variables such as use, temperature, discs with labels (or not), and so on...

digitaldoc

Yes, indeed. So many variables we'll never get to the bottom of it. Hard to more scientific than just generalizations. Noone is going to buy a writer to purely torture test it and not use it for their needs.

__________________
TechNudge Live

Plextor 760A
Plextor 740A
LiteOn 1693S
Samsung Writemaster W-164
BTC 1008
BTC 316
LiteOn 52x24x52
LiteOn 52x32x52
Benq 4816P
HP 7200e

zebra

Some people do.

__________________

Raskin, J., 2002, Cognetics and the Locus of Attention

wcw5804

We burn around 200 dvds a month and have done for years. We have found that the drives need to be replaced every 75 dvds to maintain reliable product. The dvds contain over 4gb of data.
This seems to be across the board as far as the dvd drive make is concerned.

bjkg

@ wcw5804,

Welcome to the Forum.

Perhaps you are unaware that you have just revived a 5-year-old dead Forum posting.

Your assertion at a DVD Burner needs to be replaced after burning 75 4.3GB DVDs is utterly preposterous.

I have numerous DVD Burners (BenQ/Plextor/NEC/Pioneer/Lit-ON) that each have reliably burned hundreds if not a thousand of error free 4.7GB Movies.

Regards,
bjkg

Dalen Quaice

Agreed: 75 burns is barely even using a drive. I burn more than that in a day, I think! HA

__________________
My favorite daily burning drives:
Plextor 712A - 1.09 NEC AD-7200A - 1.05 Liggy BenQ 1640 Grey OEM - BSMB LG GSA-H22N - 1.02
My favorite media:
RicohJPN R01, RicohJPN R03, MCC 003, MCC 004, Optodisc R16
Testing:
Pioneer BDR-203 Blu-Ray

storm5510

I have a dead Lite-On drive here that lasted for over five years. I cannot begin to estimate the number of DVD's and regular CD's I burned during that time. A modest guess would be over 500, based on the number of the plastic blank holders I have around. I got my use from it and then some.

Anyone that would toss out a drive after only 75 uses has more $$$ than anyone needs to have, IMHO.

DrageMester

I have had some drives that died early - even before burning 75 discs (Optiarc AD-7170/7173), but most of my drives have handled far more than that.

It must be said, that I very rarely burn more than three discs in a row without letting the drive cool down, since a buildup of heat can cause problems with the burns, and I imagine it might even reduce the lifespan of the drive.

Welcome to CDFreaks!

__________________
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

zerocool_

you can see from my sig that I have quite a few drives. In my experience, a burners life is pretty high but after about 6-7 hundred discs the success rate or the burns at ligh speeds dwindles slowly. somehow pioneer drives manage to last a tad longer than the curve.

__________________
Samsung SH-S182D, SH-S182M(Lightscribe), Plextor 740(Benq DW 1640), Plextor 716AL 1.02(Slot Load), Teac DV-W58E (Dell), LG U10N 1.05 (Thinkpad 9.5"), NEC ND-3550A, Pioneer DVR-105 A05, 111 1.19, DVR-112, A07Xl 1.22, Benq DW1655 LS BCIB, Liteon 20A1p KL0P, Matsushita SW-9587S, NU DDW-081SS, Magicspin DVDRW-1016IM, ASUS 1608P3S 1.24, LG H10N JL11, PHILIPS DVD+-RW DVD8631 GD30, Sony DDU1615 FDS3, Sony CRX 217E, Mitsumi CRMC - FX320S, Mitsumi CRMC - FX400C3 (4X IBM CD Rom Drive), Samsung DVD/CD-RW SM-308B, Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-C2502

Whappo

I'm certainly no expert when it comes to optical drives, I've only ever used one, NEC 3500AG, purchased around September 2004 for about $100. I've burned well over 2000 DVD's and countless CD's, as a matter of fact I just burned my latest DVD 30 minutes ago. I only use Verbatim or TY media and I run a Transfer Rate Test about once every month, the curves are still smooth from start to finish. I haven't had a bad burn except for one bad disk and I burn about 4 or 5 DL disks a month. This drive has outlasted motherboards, video cards, memory, monitors, keyboards, power supplies, and hard drives. I had no clue about DVD burners when I bought this drive, just a random choice, but it's been the most reliable computer component I've purchased in the last 10 years. Sometimes one just gets lucky.

NeonKnight77

I'm new and not sure if this is the correct thread, but... I have a Sony/Optiarc AW-Q170A, in a homemade beige box that was built about two or three years ago. I think the drive is finally meeting it's end, I'm not sure. Anyway sometimes It'll play a CD as clean as can be hoped for, then you can put another CD in and it'll skip worse than an old vinyl record. I't gets very aggrevating to say the least. It'll also make a noticble whirring or whining sound when a disc is spinning, which I suppose could be normal, but then again. I'ts nothing wrong with the discs they'll play fine in the DVD player connected to my TV or PS3 or in a car stereo. It really has me beat. I had someone burn a disc and it burned clean(it doesn't skip).

I'll admit the reason my Optical drive is acting up could be my fault. I'm a heavy smoker and the lens or other parts in the drive could be coated in ashes and tar from the smoke.

bjkg

@ NeonKnight77,

Welcome to the Forum.

If you believe your Optiarc AW-Q170A Optical Drive “lens or other parts in the drive could be coated in ashes and tar from the smoke” then suggest cleaning your Optiarc AW-Q170A Optical Drive Lens.

Also just because your CDs appear to play properly in another Optical Drive does not rule out the possibility there is a ‘problem’ with the CDs. Suggest using a diagnostics software utility program similar to Nero CD DVD Speed (http://www.cdspeed2000.com/files/NeroCDSpeed_47716.zip) and/or DVDInfo (http://www.dvdinfopro.com) and check the suspect CDs for Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) read/write Errors.

Regards,
bjkg

NeonKnight77

Thanks for the reply, I'll check those links out. I forgot to mention in my original post that the CDs that skip are certain CDs, I also forgot to mention that these are professionally made commercial prerecorded Cds. To get specific The CDs in question are Black Sabbath Cds, being the Paranoid, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Technical Ecstasy, and Never Say Die discs that are part of an earlier release of the Black Box boxset on the Rhino label that's part of Warner Music Group. They could be bad pressings or the glass masters that were used could have had errors. I'm not sure about copy protection or anything. The Master of Reality, Volume 4, Sabotage, and Black Sabbath(album) discs paly fine and the tracks ripped clean. These discs are kept in cases, and have never been subjected to bright sunlight, temerature extremes or anything and aren't scratched. I do have a CD-R, specifically a DataPro 52x 80min/700Mb of some music and the tracks have all of this static in them. It doesn't matter with that CDr, it was free and don't like the music that much anymore anyway. That disc was mailed to me, from to me, a foreign country since I live in the US, if that makes a difference. Discs that contain software on them, whether they are CD ROMs or DVD ROMs seem to read fine. I did try out a commercially made DVD(a movie) while it played it didn't play clean. That's just due to my computer probably not having enough RAM(only 1000MB), although I do have a pair of Athlon x64 Dual Core processors in it, or probaly a very good codec for DVDs, it's a CyberPower(?) codec.

I'll mention that have read all about optical discs suffering from "bronzing" and "laser rot". I'm sure the CDs I'm having trouble with haven't underwent bronzing, when I hold the CDs up to light at the right angle they don't have that goldish-brown coloration that's indicative of bronzing. Laser rot I can't be sure of. But maybe it's what that DataPro CD-R suffered from. I heard that CDs that undergo laser rot the tracks will have a staticy noise to them.

I'll mention that Device Manager says that the drive is functioning properly.

Like I said it could be the cigarette smoke. All the tar, ashes and other gunk could be building up on the lens and other parts. But if the drive was sealed well at all I don't see how that much smoke could get in there. Cigarette smoke hasn't had a negative effect on my DVD player to my TV, PS3 or my old PS2. I smoke just as heavily around my computer as I do in my living room.

I'll also mention that I'm a victim of occasional power outages, where the power goes out and comes back on all in the same second. The outages are always caused by a transformer going out somwhere. I keep my computer plugged into a power strip, I'm not sure about if it was sold as an actual surge suppressor, it was long ago that I bought it. I'm thinking that maybe these outages are partially screwing with the power states in my computer. After one of them my computer seems to boot up alot slower than it used to when I have to resart it after updating software or after the power comes back on after an outage. The outages could've played with how power gets to the optical drive and shorted or browned out the cables making the drive suffer occasional "voltage sags".

NeonKnight77

I done a little investigating about my drive. I went into Event Viewer and found some system errors that were generated between 2:00 and 3:00 PM -6 GMT. Event Properties said something about, Source CDrom, Event ID 7 and in the Description it read The device \device\Cdrom0, has a bad block. I'm not a genius nor am I completely in the dark about computers, but what ever that error means can't be good. I was at that time trying to play one of the discs that were "skipping".

bjkg

@ NeonKnight77,

Once again suggest checking your suspect problematic Media Disk for Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) read/write Errors as suggested in posting #18. A quality error free Media Disk will not have any Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) read/write Errors. If a Media Disk does contain Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) read/write Errors it is considered ‘defective’ and will not perform correctly.

Also again suggest thoroughly cleaning your Optiarc AW-Q170A Optical Drive Lens.

Until you effectively address these 2 specific areas you are just spinning your wheels.

Regards,
bjkg

NeonKnight77

Firstly I didn't find those two links you suggested to me to visit to be very helpful. My antivirus software blocked one telling me it was a harmful website. It seemed to be a link to open a zip folder and didn't want to take a chance of my computer getting infected with spyware, malware, or a trojan. The other one didn't make any sense.

I've read about cyclic redundancy checks. But how do you go about testing for a redundancy check anyway?

Anyway last night I restarted my computer and my DVD drive seemed to function alright. This morning I put in one those audio discs and it played alright so I went ahead and ripped all the tracks and they don't have any skips in them. I thought...yesss my drive works again...wrong. I put another disc in and it skippped and stuttered. I stopped the disc from playing. Went into Event Viewer and found two more bad block errors. I went and searched for these errors and they seem to point to optical drives or somtimes HDDs. It seems that the controllers can be going faulty. Or the IDE channels(?) are screwed up. I'll definitely try cleaning the lens though first(I saw on other forums that some posters mentioned using canned air). I already tried using one of those cheap discs with the two brushes on them and while that helped it didn't seem to put a permanent end to the problem. But I cringe at the idea of having to take the drive out and open it up. If it's tar from smoke coating the lens then I can't see where canned air will do any good, since tar will be sticky and gummy and isn't something that would blow off. Canned air would blow out any ashes and dust though.

I'm also considering updating the driver. Optiarc themselves have a newer driver but for a PATA drive though, which I think I need SATA, if any of this makes sense. I'd hate to install the wrong driver and pretty much render the drive completely usless. I suppose I could download the driver and if it turns out to be the wrong one roll back to the old one.

If I'm scared of doing any or all of this myself I'll just take the tower back to the man that built it for me. He should remebered how the computer was set up and configured. Hopefully he kept hold of a tech sheet or whatever. But I don't really trust him. He's some old computer tech that runs some cheesy Mom&Pop store. But it'll come at a cost though since the computer is two years old and none of the work or components are no longer under warranty. I had the fan go out on the video card and couldn't get a replacment from nVidia. The fan sort of works but squaeks sometimes cause the bearing slipped. He did put a slot fan in it that works, but at the cost of having a slot I won't be able to put something else in, blah, blah, blah.

I suppose if cleaning the lens, coming up empty with CRCs, and the controllers aren't bad then I'll just replace the drive.

bjkg

@ NeonKnight77,

There are ABSOLUTY no viruses, spyware, malware, and/or trojan in the N e r o CD DVD Speed (http://www.cdspeed2000.com/files/NeroCDSpeed_47716.zip) and/or the DVDInfo (http://www.dvdinfopro.com) Web Links downloads I have provided. The problem totally lies in the crappie AntiVirus software program you are using.

For a User Guide for the N e r o CD DVD Speed software utility suggest referring to the CDFreaks Forum posting titled “CD-DVD Speed - A user guide” (http://club.cdfreaks.com/f96/cd-dvd-...r-guide-192563). For Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) read/write Errors checking refer to (http://club.cdfreaks.com/f96/cd-dvd-...3/#post1540646) and perform a “Scan Disc” surface scan of your suspect problematic Media Disk.

Concerning the DVDInfo software utility program have you thoroughly reviewed the “Local Help File” that is included in the DVDInfo software program? This “Local Help File” provides detailed user information on the use of the software program. The DVDInfo software program along with Nero CD DVD Speed software program are two highly regarded diagnostic software programs.

Once again have you perform a through and complete cleaning of your Optiarc AW-Q170A Optical Drive? Until you ensure that your Optiarc AW-Q170A Optical Drive Lens is thoroughly clean and functioning correctly you cannot effectively trouble shoot your problem. A Google Search (http://www.google.com) will reveal detailed information on how to correctly clean a CD/DVD Burner lens.

Regards,
bjkg

NeonKnight77

I downloaded the thing from DVDInfoPro. I tested all of my discs for CRCs and came up empty. This why I'm late with replying. It took forever to test audio CDs, although it tested CD-Rs fairly fast.

I tried another audio CD and it played without skipping. I haven't tried another audio CD as of yet

I still have yet to clean the lens on my drive. But I don't think I have to. I mean if a CD is playing without skipping then it can't be the lens. I was also ill advised of taking an optical drive apart to try cleaning it with canned air. The person that told me this was speaking about taking apart an optical drive on their computer and having all of these springs flying out of it, making it impossible to know where all of the springs go when putting it back together.

I'm at this point pointing at the controllers being to blame for those bad block errors, and one or two atapi controller errors I was seeing showing up in Event Viewer.

I was also about to flash the drive to install new firmware, but talked myself out of it, it looked like too of a complicated process for me.