Multiple DVD's at the same time?

Newbie Forum
#1

I am trying to find out if i can, and if yes how to, turn one of my pc’s in to a duplicator.

Every now and again i have to copy 50 or so DVD’s and dont want to by a duplicator as i only need to do this once or twice a year and it would be a waste of equipment to buy a duplicator.

I do however have 3 fairly high spec pc’s with 4 bays in each tower so it would be handy if there was a way that i could install 4 DVD writers in one machine and burn 4 disks at the same time.

Can any one help and advise if and how to do?

Thanks!!!

#2

I have done 2 at a time, and think that I have heard of people doing 3. One issue you are going to run into is 4 16x burns at the same time can exceed your hard drives speed. You might need to have a fast raid array or run the source file from multiple source hard drives. Unless someone else has tried it, all I can think to do is buy/add one drive at a time and see if it works. If you are already doing it on your pc, the most you will end up with is one more drive than you can use. Fyi you can have multiple instances of nero running if that helps. Just keep an eye on task manager each time that you add a drive to see how your system resources are doing. Another approach might be to have more than one computer setup for burning, maybe 2 per computer. A kvm switch might work well with that setup or if they are running in seperate rooms, maybe a vnc network or other means of controling the desktops of the others from one computer.

#3

You should be able to do a 4drive array burning at 8x just to be sure ( i dont think that the 3 min you will be gaining per burn at 16x is wirth the hassle). What you will need:

  1. 4 drives / same model
  2. Software that supports burning with 4 drives such as Nero or Disk Juggler

Using quality media such as TY and/or MCC can only help.

#4

Thank you!!!

I already have Nero so i will got out and get a couple of DVD writer drives today and see if i can get it going.

Any advice on which make and model for writer?

thanks in advance…

Scott

#5

Just get good quality burners e.g. Benq 1640. Make sure you have only one burner model! BTW, you should NOT use multiple instances IMHO. This is a very bad idea. Use software which properly supports multiple burners such as Nero. In this case, it should be writing the same data to each disc at the same time and it should only read the data once. It’s extremely stupid for it to be trying to read the data 1 time for each burner. Obviously, it’ll still have to get sent to each burner but this will be from memory/direct

#6

The 1640 is an excellent choice indeed

#7

You are absolutlly corect. I had forgotten that nero could do that. Their should be an option to use multiple recorders.

#8

Yep there is