OK, I used to originally have a Parallel port burner a few years ago. (HP7200E)

That was replaced with a USB 1.1 (HP8210E) a short while later(By HP for free) and now I have a FireWire one.

The current one is originally a Sony CRX1600L, which is based on a Sony 12X8X32.

The drive in my HP8210E originally died (So American Express refunded original purchase price), and I got a Sony CRX1611 to fit in same case, alot cheaper than buying a whole new drive.

But I eventually replaced my old Acer 501T (P266/96) with a Dell Inspiron 8000 (PIII1000/256), and the Dell came native with a FireWire plug.

So I got hold of the Sony CRX1600L refurbished on EBay for a bargain, ripped the 12X from the FireWire case and threw in the CRX1611 (16X10X40). Also fitted the 12X Sony in the HP8210E case and sold it for more than I paid for the Sony FireWire, but thats another story

The Sony CRX1611 drive eventually died last month and I sent it back to the place I bought it from under warranty. However, the Sony CRX1611 never came home again from repair. It was replaced by the OEM seller I bought it from with a Sony CRX175, which luckily for me was lost by the courier company enroute to me. So since they are self insured, I asked them to send me the Liteon instead for an extra $ 10.00. Arrived today, turned out to be the 40125W, so I'm happy.

Works perfect in the Sony FireWire case, NP there. Seen by everything except WinOnCD 5.02, but have now done a REG fix, so works flawlessly in WinonCD 5.02 as well.

So for everybody out there with notebooks, FireWire cases do work very well. You get same speed as if it was an internal drive in a desktop.

Read Test:
Burn Test:

So overall, I havent really had any problems because I use a FireWire compared to a normal IDE.

This is some cool information ! Keep 'em coming.
By the way , what's the cpu usage when burning.
17% cpu time on 8 speed reading is quite a lot methinks.

Thanks MB.

How do I se what the CPU runs at during burn?

Whats normal CPU under read of audio at 8X?

Well , if youre using Win2k/NT or XP you could use the Task manager to find out how much cpu time gets eaten while writing.

I don't know the standard cpu consumings , but in general every IDE action takes 100% of the cpu time ; even a Udma IDE action. But when using seperate chips (Promise , Highpoint , etc) the cpu consumes far less since the controller chip take a little care for it. I was wondering if this also would be the case with firewire (since it's also seperate chips using dma routing through the bridges).

OK, yes I know I could look in Task Manager, but thought there might had a been a way with CD Speed to get it to show it, never really used that program much, so far from an expert with it.

I'll have a peak next time, and I'll do a snapshot.