my current computer has 2 dvd drives, one recorder a plextor px-708a/sw-bl

http://www.superwarehouse.com/Plextor_Inte...SW-BL/ps/317132

and one reader a sony ddu1612

http://reviews.cnet.com/dvd-drives/sony-dd....html?tag=specs

i just got a new double layer recorder and my question is which of my 2 older drives to keep
i figure i will be doing all my recording on my new drive

the sony drive has a faster DVD read speed which is why im considering keeping it (16x as oppsed to 12x)
the plextor drive has a bigger buffer (2MB as opposed to 512KB) and obviously it records whereas the sony drive doesnt

something else that probably shouldnt factor in to my decision but i cant seem to forget about is that when i bought these drives 4 years ago, the plextor was much more expensive (like $200 compared to $30 for the sony)

are there any other significant differences that im not noticing?
is the plextor drive just a better drive and the one i should keep even though the sony has a faster read speed?

thanks for your advice
-josh

The Sony's only a DVD Reader and that's all it does. It'll never write anything.
The Plextor is a DVD writer which will double up as a DVD Player, CD Writer and CD player.

Seeing as the Plextor does more, its worth hanging onto. I'd flog the Sony on eBay, even if it goes for peanuts it'll go to a good home as opposed to the scrapyard. Plus as you paid more for the Plextor, I'd personally hang on it until it's dead on its knees and get your money's worth out of it.

Cache size on the writing side is far more important than on the reading side. Reading speed is irrelevant - it just takes slightly longer but its nothing to write home about.

thanks for the reply....

i was actually thinking the same thing so i left the plextor drive and added the new recorder.

however, the plextor drive was unable to read a few different dual layer dvds. i tried 4 different dvds, 1 of them read and played just fine, the other 3 wouldnt play or open in widows explorer at all, i would get a message about an error with the device's I/O configuration. it was able to read CDs just fine.

so i left the new sony recorder in and then put back the old sony reader. the sony reader was able to read all the disks the plextor drive wasnt able to read. i called plextor and asked them, they seemd to think their drive shouldnt have any problem reading the dual layer disks.

so right now ive got 1 drive that is a reader only and the dual layer recorder. this should be fine for my purposes, but out of curiosity does anyone know why the plextor drive wasnt able to read the dual layer disks?

thanks
-josh

How old is the drive and are they + disks or - disks?
A few years ago there were incompatiblity issues with DVD media, in which some units could only read plus disks and others could only read minus disks. Also don't forget, Dual-Layer has only been around about five years so if the drive is around that age, it may not be able to read them.
However a lot depends on how the disks were written in the first place.

well the drive is about 4 years old, the disk i wanted it to read was just a dvd from blockbuster. how i met your mother......
i know its a dual layer just by the size of it reported in 'my computer'

plextor's customer support said it shouldnt have a problem reading the dvd, i was just wondering if i was doing something wrong, or it the unit is on its way out

thanks

Well if the laser's on the way out then the thing will become obsolete shortly anyway because its no good without a laser and its ultimately far cheaper to buy a new DVD Writer.