Bob,

  I'm not sure if there is a "best" cd burner out there. The unit that
fills your needs would probably be rated by you as the "best for you".
  My first burner was a Ricoh external SCSI. The failure (coaster) rate was
more than 60% and DAE (digital audio extraction) was unacceptable. I
returned the unit and purchased a Plextor 412 internal, caddy loading SCSI
and have not had a single failure after nearly 100 burns of data CDs, hd
backups and audio CDs. Now I'm certain there are lots of folks who are
pleased with their Ricoh unit, but it just didn't work well for me. At the
office we use HP burners and see a failure rate of about 30-40%
  There are many issues to research before you can make an educated
decision...SCSI vs. IDE, CDRW vs. CDR, internal vs. external, tray loading
vs. caddy loading, internal buffer size, manufacturer's support/bundled
software and pricing among others. After your purchase there are additional
issues such as compatible software and compatible blank media. Usenet
groups have proved to be a good source of information. I suggest you take
the magazine reviews of these units and associated software with a grain of
salt. Good luck!

Tom LaMotta

At 12:39 PM 7/15/98 -0500, you wrote:
>I have a adaptec 2940 and am considering a scsi burner.
>I have tons of digital photos MPEG3s etc (gigs) I need to back up.
>I also want to mess around with making some  music cds to play in the car.
>Lets talk about this removable storage issue. Where do you think it is going.
>What is the best value right now. I have no idea what the best scsi CDRW is
>for the money.