I'm looking for an external enclosure that will work with my drive whic has an IDE interface. I'm looking one that is not only reliable, but also the fastest transfer time. Any recommendations?

Any compatible USB2 or FW enclosure will be more then fast enough for burning CDs.

Check out my sig. there you see my enclosures for my Plextor drives. The PX-760A makes problems with Plextools and DAE using the Prolific PL3507.

The MAP-H51 enclosure has an internal power supply and a small fan. The fan is the only disadvantage. Some of my enclosures have a more silent fan, other enclosures not... . The enclosure at all is most made in aluminium and looks really great (in my opinion).



Note: I had problems with the PL3507 and the Premium II. For this reason I use the H51 case with GL811E04+OX911 chipset. This problem was only sometimes. When changing the chipset the problem was gone... it was a strange issue.

Just out of curiosity, what's the difference between Premium I and II?

Does Mapower enclosures come in black as well? So just make sure that the enclosure that I have won't have a Prolific PL3507 chipset and I'll be fine?

The Premium I was based on speed and the Premium II was based on slower burns and can use AMQR at slower speeds. Both can burn at 52x but not many MIDS will burn that fast without a lot of errors.

I cannot answer your 2nd question. All my Plextors are being used as internal drives.

In terms of reading performance, is the Premium II as good as Premium I?

I really have not used mine for ripping.

Maybe another member can answer that?

The Mapower enclosure comes only in silver. The Mapower enclosure is one of the few enclosures with internal power supply. I was looking for an external enclosure and I did not find a lot enclosures.
There is the "Snowline" enclosure made by MacPower (the enclosure works with PCs also, the companyname is only a name, the products are not MAC related). The MacPower enclosure also has an internal PSU. The design of the enclosure is nice, but it is not aluminium. I do not like the "half transparent plastic", but the shape and design itself looks nice. I'd like the enclosure more if it would have been made with white or black plastic.
http://www.macpower.com.tw/products/


For example Shuttle makes an external enclosure (with exteral PSU). This enclosure is available in silver and black. It is called PE20




The problem with the Prolific is a kind of strange. I know there are people (here in this forum) having the Premium II in an enclosure with Prolific 3507 and having no problems. But I definately had compatibility problems. Don't ask why. Normally I really like the Prolific chipset. I never had problems with it except the Premium II (and of course the PX-760A DAE with Plextools).

I use both my PRemium and Premium II for DAE and burning. But I use both drives only up to 40x speed. The reason is some of the disks I have do not have the CD hole exactly in the middle and the drive begins to hum due to an unbalacne of the non centric hole.
Burns with 40x do not make any problems. Maybe I'll try a 52x burn if I have time and save a few seconds of my life since the burn is faster finished
I make DAE mostly with 16x speed. The results were always good. I guess Plextools only offers DAE up to 32x speed. But I'm not sure at the moment...

Hope I could help a little bit.

Btw. the gray Bezel of the Premium or Premium II looks really great in a silver enclosure if you want I'd take a picture if you want. The black bezels for the Premium II are a kind of rare. In Europe there is no way to get it and in the US it is difficuilt but maybe not impossible. There are a few people in the US having a black, silver and gray bezel. Normally only the japanese version has this 3 bezels.