Testing 5 Plextor Plexwriter PX-230A Drives Against Eachother

[marccunn]

Hello All:

I have 5 Plextor Plexwriter PX-230A Drives, 3 of which are still in their sealed boxes.

I want to begin ripping my collection of about 1,000 CDs, about 80% classical and 20% rock.

I only want to do this once, so I want to "rip once - rip right".

Thus, I would like to test all of the Plextors, to see which one of them is the most accurate.

Is there a way to do this by testing them all against eachother, or should I just assume that all of them are equally accurate?

Should I just do rips on each one and have the info from each submitted to AccurateRip?

Is there a way just to do the rips and compare the 5 results to themselves without submitting anything to AccurateRip?

'Sorry to be asking these questions, but I have never done any drive testing before, so I do not know the procedure for testing 5 drives against each other.

I have thus far been unable to find any posts here addressing this particular issue.

Sadly, I notice that the venerable 230A has fallen to second place on the 2012 accuracy list, after so many years in first place.

Also, if I am not mistaken, all the "Best Of The Best" 2012 5.25" internal drives are ATA/IDE.

Are there any SATA 5.25" internal drives that are at least 99% accurate?

I just built a new PC with an ASRock Extreme9 motherboard, 64 Gb RAM, Intel Core i7 3.6Ghz X79 LGA2011 CPU and Windows 7 Ultimate.

Unfortunately the Extreme9 does not have any IDE slots.

It is all SATA.

I have tried to get one of my Plextor PX-230s to work on the Extreme9 with an IDE-to-SATA adapter, but no luck.

It would be nice to find a 99% accurate SATA internal 5.25" drive that I could use for my ripping project, since my new Extreme9 PC is faster than my older ones.

Oddly, I have a Sony DRU-810A (which is also on the 2012 "Best Of The Best" list but much lower down than the PX-230A), and I was able to get that to work on my new Extreme9 PC using the same IDE-to-SATA adapter I had tried on the PX-230A.

I think it may have something to do with the fact that the Sony is a DVD/CD drive, whereas the PX-230A is only CD drive.

The addition of the DVD ability in a drive must make it easier for Windows 7 to recognize that drive, than just a plain old CD drive.

I tried a bunch of other DVD/CD drives that I have, and they all worked on my new Extreme9 PC with the same IDE-to-SATA adapter I had tried on the PX-230A, whereas the PX-230A never worked.

Thus, for my ripping project I will have to use one of my trusted old PCs (ASUS P5WD2 Premium motherboard, 4 Gb RAM, 3.2Ghz Intel CPU and Windows XP Pro) that already has a PX-230A installed.

Anyway, if someone could help me with this issue of finding the most accurate of my 230A drives, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you very much in advance for your consideration.

Marc

[EliC]

Re: Testing 5 Plextor Plexwriter PX-230A Drives Against Eachother

All of the drives will be just as accurate.

AccurateRip is your friend. You don't need to rip multiple times in different drives. AR will tell you if your rip is accurate.

There are discs that you will find that won't rip with your 230 and may with another drive. I use 5 different drives when ripping. Don't worry so much about it being a 99% accurate drive, worry about the output results and if they are accuraterip verified.

If the disc is NOT in accuraterip you can use CueTools to verify agains the CueTools Database (if its in there) and if a disc has errors, you can use CueTools and CueTools DB to repair the rip.

[marccunn]

Re: Testing 5 Plextor Plexwriter PX-230A Drives Against Eachother

OK, EliC, thanks very much for the guidance.

I shall give it a shot.

If you don't mind my asking, what are the makes and model numbers of the 5 different drives that you use for ripping, and why do you use 5?

Do you favor some for classical music, and some for rock or other genres, or is it more a question of the accuracy of each particular rip, as you indicate below?

Are any of them SATA?

Thanks again.

Marc

All of the drives will be just as accurate.

AccurateRip is your friend. You don't need to rip multiple times in different drives. AR will tell you if your rip is accurate.

There are discs that you will find that won't rip with your 230 and may with another drive. I use 5 different drives when ripping. Don't worry so much about it being a 99% accurate drive, worry about the output results and if they are accuraterip verified.

If the disc is NOT in accuraterip you can use CueTools to verify agains the CueTools Database (if its in there) and if a disc has errors, you can use CueTools and CueTools DB to repair the rip.

[Porcus]

Re: Testing 5 Plextor Plexwriter PX-230A Drives Against Eachother

I have been using multiple drives myself. Whatever I had lying around, pulled from old computers ... and a PX-230A.

What I did (thousands of CDs), was using a changer. (Bhoar maybe still has some for sale, discounted, if that is interesting.) Troublemaking discs were re-ripped in another drive. Still-troublemaking discs were re-ripped using a PX-230A. I wore out one (it wasn't new when I bought it though) and I have another employed. Different drives read different, and I'd choose one PX-230A and one random over two PX-230A's, just to get another chance.

[EliC]

Re: Testing 5 Plextor Plexwriter PX-230A Drives Against Eachother

Exactly as Porcus said. Different drives are able to "read through" different scratches, smudges, etc. If one drive can't read it, often another one can. What drives you use are not as important as long as you can confirm the results with AccurateRip or CTDB.

[bhoar]

Re: Testing 5 Plextor Plexwriter PX-230A Drives Against Eachother

I concur with Porcus and Elic. And yes, I have a ton of equipment, including bare drives, from back when I was tinkering. And, of course, lots of robots to get rid of. :P

Brendan

[EliC]

Re: Testing 5 Plextor Plexwriter PX-230A Drives Against Eachother

you do want a drive that can read HTOA (hidden track one audio)