DVD Drive Recommendations
 

Greetings Everyone,
My DVD drive is on its last legs. Honestly, I am not that opposite about it because it gives me an excuse to get another one as the current one is extremely loud. Most DVD are the same and I am looking for a new one that doesn't sound like a 747 taking off when it spins a DVD/CD. Thats my top priority. Any recommendations, ideas, etc. Thanks

well if you're looking for an upgrade.. why not go for a dvd-rw they're fairly cheap now.. and would give you the ability to burn movies and have greater storage for the discs.. just my opinion

I do have a burner (a Pioneer DVR 108) but I am just looking for a normal DVD-Rom drive. Thanks though for the suggestion.

16x dual layer burners are on sale for $39-59 almost all the time. Readers don't get much cheaper than that.

It's normal to get noise with some disks if they're out of balance. If you buy a drive that makes noise with all disks, take it back. The balance ring is bad.

I would say buy a Lite-On drive. Many drives out there currently are relabeled Lite-On drives, might as well get one from the MFG.

www.cpu.com has good prices for optical drives.

yea i have that same drive.. great little beast...

I havent had good experiences from lite-on, but my NEC burner works just fine, and it was cheap too.

I have a lite-on 1336s, and I like it fine after I got some modded firmware. It burns nicely on good media (Taiyo Yuden 02s)
The NEC 3500 is extremely popular (You can find it rebranded as MAD DOG) but its hard to find now since its been upgraded to the NEC 3520. THe Benq 1620 is also very good (Its rebadged as I/O Magic). From what I've read, the Benq is a better reader than the NEC.
Remember, the quality of your media is just as important as your burner. Especially in Lite-On drives. They seem to picky about what they like.