Hi,
I'm about to retire my old 24x CD-rom for something more modern. I currently rip at 1,2x with cdparanoia enabled in Ubuntu, and I'd like something a lot faster than that. Does anyone know if I should look for something special when shopping for a new drive? I've been considering the NEC 3540, since it's cheap and well reputated.
I might add that I'll be doing other things with it apart from ripping, so it needs to be good allround, and preferably cheap.
EDIT: It seems that I should look for a drive that doesn't cache audio (even more since I'm gonna use cdparanoia), and according to cdfreaks the NEC 3540 doesn't.

Just noticed your new post... As I've replied in that other 'linux apps' thread, be sure the drive does not cache audio data.

Not 100% sure, but I believe the one you've picked does not (which is good). I have an older NEC drive (ND2500A) which does not cache and works great with cdparanoia. In fact it works great on about every task (ripping/reading/burning), it's quiet and relatively cheap. I've used it for almost two years now and never had any problems (except for a batch of crappy media which I couldn't burn correctly).

To be fully honest though, I do all my ripping on Windows (using EAC and a Plextor W4012TA). This one overreads into lead-in/lead-out as well, and EAC has the added advantage of providing a very useful log. I couldn't get along with the cdparanoia smilies

That being said, I believe NEC 3540 is a good choice (provided you get a second, more informed opinion on the audio cache issue) for Linux (and Windows as well).

Pioneer 107 doesn't cache so is safe with cdparanoia, anything that caches will be no good with it. It will work but errors won't be corrected.

Kristian

It certainly seems like the NEC 3540 doesn't cache data, so I put out an order for it. Should arrive today/tomorrow.
I'll report back after having tried it in Linux .