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Newbie questions: Plextor PX-708A DVD+RW


jishaq

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My Plextor PX-708A DVD+RW drive tells me I can obtian a free 30-day trial copy of Retrospect if I email a particular address. I have done so, and I have some questions about this product that I hope are appropraite for this forum.

 

I have spent 3 weeks trying to back up a small home business LAN onto DVD+RW media and have met bitter failure. My LAN consists of 3 Windows 2000 Pro SP2 laptops and a single Win 2000 Advanced Server SP4 machine that physically has the Plextor DVD+RW device in it. I am considering downgrading the server to become just a Win2000 Pro machine, as I really only use it for file sharing.

 

1) I have tried using InCD + Veritas BackupExec, to no avail. InCD is buggy and has managed to render my Verbatim DVD+RW media (recommended by Plextor) unusable, despite the latest firmware and software updates. BackupExec has terrible support, is expensive, and is just too complicated to navigate. Has anybody on this forum had success performing backups that span multiple DVDs with the Plextor PX-708A DVD+RW drive?

 

2) Does Retrospect provide its own mechanisms for working with DVD+RW Media, or must I work with a third-party package for such tasks? E.g., packet-writing and media-formatting tasks. If third-party packages are required, has anyone specifically had success with such a package on the PX-708A DVD+RW drive under Windows 2000 Pro or Server? I have found Roxio, InCD, Nero 6 all to be difficult to work with, and I am at a point where I have somehow rendered 3 DVD+RWs unusable with Nero/InCD. Since I bought the DVD+RW drive for the sole purpose of backup, ideally I would uninstall all such tools (Nero, InCD, Roxio) and my backup software would take care of everything.

 

Thanks very much for your help.

-Jeff

 

 

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Following up on my own message...

 

Quote:

jishaq said:

 

1) I have tried using InCD Veritas BackupExec, to no avail. InCD is buggy and has managed to render my Verbatim DVD RW media (recommended by Plextor) unusable, despite the latest firmware and software updates. BackupExec has terrible support, is expensive, and is just too complicated to navigate. Has anybody on this forum had success performing backups that span multiple DVDs with the Plextor PX-708A DVD RW drive?

 

 


 

Retrospect 6.5 Pro seems to span multiple DVDs just fine on this drive.

 

Quote:

jishaq said:

2) Does Retrospect provide its own mechanisms for working with DVD RW Media, or must I work with a third-party package for such tasks? E.g., packet-writing and media-formatting tasks. If third-party packages are required, has anyone specifically had success with such a package on the PX-708A DVD RW drive under Windows 2000 Pro or Server? I have found Roxio, InCD, Nero 6 all to be difficult to work with, and I am at a point where I have somehow rendered 3 DVD RWs unusable with Nero/InCD. Since I bought the DVD RW drive for the sole purpose of backup, ideally I would uninstall all such tools (Nero, InCD, Roxio) and my backup software would take care of everything.

 

 


 

Retrospect 6.5 Pro does not require the use of any third-party software to work with (erase / format, read, write) DVD RW media. I was quite pleased to do a fresh install of Win2k Pro SP4, install Retrospect, and have it work with my DVD media without having to install and use Nero/Roxio to prepare and work with the media.

 

As I see it, this gives Retrospect a huge advantage over other backup solutions (Backup Exec 9.0) that do not directly support DVD RW operations, and which instead require a third-party package to do so. Such a requirement convolutes the backup system and drastically increases the possibility of failure or problems due to buggy software. In my experience, most consumer-oriented software for working with DVDs is notoriously buggy (Roxio, InCD, etc) and, while adequate for archiving Sex and the City episodes and MP3s, this software is not robust enough to facilitate the I/O required of backup software.

 

-Jeff

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  • 2 weeks later...

The new drive configuration SHOULD be a great advantage. But I often run for me and my customers into drive support problems.

 

DVD-Drives run well under cheap NERO software but will be slowed down like a snail (10-20Mb/Min instead of about 200Mb/min) by Retrospect or give often errors when used as external drives. You always hear the same from technical support "this drive is not supported" bla bla.

The supported drives are mostly no longer available (because OLD) or very expensive and then still have problems externally.

 

Since OS X is out for the mac and will be now widespread since software get more and more unavailable for OS 9, I will look for an long-term alternative.

 

For a windows PC there a quite some alternatives I think.

 

I am a little pissed off by Dantz due to this long-term lack of drive support and enduring problems, although the software itself is good.

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Quote:

I am a little pissed off by Dantz due to this long-term lack of drive support

 


 

Retrospect 6.5 has a built-in auto-configurator that can build a driver for most unsupported CD/DVD drives. If the drive can be successfully configured in Retrospect 6.5 we will support it.

 

See the following tutorial for details.

http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=kbase&ACTION=KBASE&id=27811

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

>I am a little pissed off by Dantz due to this long-term lack of drive support and enduring >problems, although the software itself is good.

 

Why do you say this? I recently played with a number of DVD drives to find the best one and not ONE drive gave me a problem with the auto configurator. I too settled on the PX-708A(great drive BTW) and had no problems with it either. You do need to get a firmware upgrade first though(at least under XP Pro).

 

Also, I ran the configurator on the Plextor just to be sure and I get great performance.

 

Just my .02 cents.

 

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