Product Reviews North Las Vegas NV

Posted by : Ken Henningsen / Drew Robb Speed to Burn

OWC's Mercury Pro DVR-110 DVD burner.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Other World Computing. As befits their funky name, they've been supporting the Mac community with well-designed hardware through good times and bad for17 years--almost exactly as long as I've been a Mac user. They're both a manufacturer and distributor, and it's been my experience that anything bearing the OWC name has been Mac-tested and is backed by good tech support.

One of OWC's latest offerings is the Pioneer DVR-110Ddual-layer DVD burner, either internal ($68-85, depending on software/media bundle) or in OWC's Mercury Pro FireWire/USB 2.0 case($138); I tested the latter. In either configuration, the drive is Pioneer's latest/greatest (16x DVD, 8x DVD-DL, 40x CD). It's the first on the market with 8x dual-layer burning, though it lacks some others' DVD-RAM burning capability (so you might want to wait for the next generation if you're into HDTV). It's also compatible with all Apple applications--not always the case with third-party drives. The OWC case is a nice "stackable" design in clear plastic, with a small cooling fan(though the DVR-110D is a comparatively cool runner) that's audible but not annoyingly so. It uses a separate power brick, but this has its own cord and won't hog extra space on your power strip. OWC ships it with NTI Dragon Burn (a full-featured Mac burning suite) and Dantz Retrospect Express (a highly regarded backup package...

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