Best external enclosure for DW1650?

CD, DVD and (Ultra HD) Blu-ray Writers
#1

I’ve replaced my BenQ DW1650 with a new Pioneer DVR-112D, and I’d like to put the DW1650 in an external USB/Firewire enclosure, since I no longer have any room in either computer to keep the DW1650 installed. The primary use for the external DW1650 would be for quality scanning with Nero CD/DVD Speed, rather than for burning. I have USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394a ports available for use on both computers.

From reading the forums, it appears that using optical drives in external enclosures seems to be quite problematic and seems to center around the USB/Firewire chipsets used in the various enclosures.

Not knowing any better, my first choice would have been the Plumax Stortecc PM-525C2-PPB with the Prolific PL-3507 Combo USB/Firewire chipset from DealSonic. They mention BenQ as being compatible with this enclosure. However, they show this enclosure as discontinued (or backordered, depending on how you read it).

My second coice would be the Plumax Stortecc PM-525C2-PTB with the Cypress AT2+ chipset for USB and the Oxford OXFW911+ chipset for IEEE 1394 Firewire. This unit is still available, however they don’t mention BenQ as being compatible with this enclosure.

My questions are:

Are drives like the BenQ DW1650, which were previously good scanners when connected directly to an IDE/ATAPI controller, still reliable scanners when mounted in an external enclosure and operating on a compatible USB or IEEE 1394 to IDE/ATAPI Bridge? Will the current DW1650 firmware BCIC work in an external enclosure or will I need to re-flash to another version?

Has anyone had any experience, good or bad, with the BenQ DW1650 in the Plumax Stortecc PM-525C2-PTB enclosure? Is the Cypress AT2+/Oxford OXFW911+ as good or better than the Prolific PL-3507 Combo?

Finally, does anyone know of an online retailer, preferably in the US, who might still have the Plumax Stortecc PM-525C2-PPB available?

#2

I have used my BenQ DW1655 drives in external enclosures based on Prolific PL-3507 and they worked fine in those wnclosures, with the exception of not achieveing 16x burns and only achieving 16x reads over FireWire. The DW1655 is identical to the DW1650 except that it also supports LightScribe.

Scanning requires less bandwith than actual reading, so even if another enclosure should give you lower bandwidt than the PL-3507 enclosures, you might still be able to scan at maximum speed and I think it’s unlikely that you won’t be able to scan at 8x even with poor bandwidth.

My own experiences with Cypress AT2 based enclosures are not good - I couldn’t get more than 7 MB/s throughput, so I’m using them for CD-RW drives. Others have been luckier with AT2/AT2+ based enclosures.

#3

I can recommend the StorTecc PM-525C2-ETB V4 Combo hooked-up via the Oxford 911+ 1394 (Firewire) ONLY. I can’t recommend this for USB 2.0.
I was lucky enough to snag this 1655 Retail from Newegg and received it today. Installed in the mentioned enclosure-

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96+BENQ1655@16X+LastDays.png645×531 43 KB

#4

:clap: Incredile, a DMA-2 drive burning at 16x in enclosure. Think many here will have to correct their “books”. :slight_smile:

Great burn steven2874. :clap:

#5

Thanks pinto2. Incidentally, the “Big external enclosures thread” is a great resource. Any success I’ve had has been because of the helpfullness of my fellow CDFreaks (yourself included :flower: ) in these forums.

#6

Can you elaborate? Have you tried it using USB? If so, what problems did you have?

I’d like to have an enclosure that will work with the DW165X drives on both USB and Firewire - at least for disc quality scanning. After all, if I buy a combo interface enclosure for more money, that’s what I’d be paying for. Anything else would be kinda like saying the brand new TV you just bought won’t work at all on channels 2 or 3, but that’s OK because you can get somewhat similar programs on channels 7 and 9! :confused:

Too bad that the Prolific PL-3507 USB/IEEE 1394 Combo chipset seems to have disappeared from the market. That appears to have been the most compatible chipset for many drives.

#7

Hi,

This isn’t something really new, as Samsung is also using UDMA2 drives for their retail external units. Other than Benq, they don’t even use modified firmware.

Michael

#8

Retail external units, yes… :smiley:
But not many here (if any) managed to run a DW1655 firmware at 16x in a ordinary enclosure.

Note, for DW165* drives there isn’t any >UDMA-2 modified firmware.

#9

Yes I can elaborate. I tried using it on USB and it sucked. The problem was a 16 MB/sec transfer rate. It performs nicely on 1394 as the scan I posted shows. If you need great performance via USB don’t buy this enclosure. Period.
To further elaborate, I am not selling this product. I don’t care whether you buy it or not.
Incidently, your analogy to a TV was a poor one. Comparing 200 channels on Dish Satellite Network (firewire) and 5 channels over the air (USB) would be more apt.
Hope you find your perfect enclosure. If you do be sure and let us CD Freaks know :smiley: