The Gist of CD DVD Duplicators

OK, so you’re in the market to purchase a stand-alone, manual tower duplicator, but you have no idea about anything when it comes to these machines. The only thing you do know is that you are sick and tired of burning one disc at a time using your computer with one CD DVD burner – very time consuming. The first thing you should ask yourself is, “How much time am I willing to sacrifice to produce X amount of discs?” Obviously, the more targets your duplicator has, the faster you will finish the job at hand. For example, let’s say you want to burn copies of a CD containing roughly 500 MB of data using a 7 target duplicator with a 40X CD-ROM (of course using a hard drive instead of a CD-ROM would be faster since there is no re-reading of the master disc, but we’ll use the CD-ROM in this example) at a write speed of 40X. With a simple push of a button, you let the tower duplicator work its magic. In an hour’s time, you’ll be able to duplicate over 100 copies. So it all depends on how much time you want to spend loading and unloading after each run is complete. In this case, you would have probably loaded 15 times in that hour to produce over 100 copies. If this doesn’t sound appealing to you, maybe you should consider more targets or even “daisy-chaining” two or more duplicators together to achieve a higher capacity per run. Now you need to consider how much you are willing to cough up to purchase one of these CD DVD duplicators.

You decide to go ahead and buy a CD DVD tower duplicator just for kicks and because you need one. It’s only equivalent to six months worth of your daily dose of caffeine from Starbucks – not too bad of a sacrifice, right? Right. Other than the price you want to pay, you need to consider the type of duplicator you want to purchase, CD only or DVD, which handles both CDs and DVDs. If you are 110% certain that you will never ever need to duplicate DVDs, then go with the CD duplicator. I, personally, would go with the DVD duplicator since it copies both CDs and DVDs, the price difference is minimal, and you never know later on down the line whether or not you will need to duplicate DVDs. But that’s just me.

Something else to consider when purchasing a duplicator is whether or not to add a hard drive. A hard drive is not mandatory, but there are a lot of benefits if you do decide to have a hard drive installed in your tower duplicator. First, you can safely store data that you make frequent duplications from and easily recall this data at any time instead of storing the master onto a disc. Next, it is faster and more efficient when burning off of the image stored in your hard drive as opposed to having the duplicator read off of the master disc. When you burn off of a master disc, the duplicator re-reads off of this master causing more time to lapse. A hard drive can ensure quality burns at the true maximum speed. Lastly, the use of a hard drive will help minimize the number of both read and write failures.

Of the three major components (controller, ROM drive, writer drives), the most important component of the tower duplicator is the controller. Let’s just say that the controller is the brains of the duplicator. The controller reads from the master source and relays that information to the writer drives so that the writer drives, in turn, will know what to make copies of. At this point, you’re probably asking yourself, “What’s the difference amongst all of the controllers?” Well, you need to understand how the controller works to really know the difference. The key element regarding a duplicator controller is the buffer memory. The larger the buffer size, the easier it is to access documents and programs that are opened often. The buffer memory should be at least 32 MB per chipset, the industry standard. Beware of manufacturers (especially generic no-namers) dishonestly claiming to have a larger buffer memory than what is really inside. Cheaply manufactured controllers have high failure rates and are not compatible with a lot of different media out on the market. Go with trusted companies with an excellent reputation and reliable technical support so that you can be reassured that you are getting a good, dependable controller.

An important, often overlooked, facet when it comes to controllers is the ability to “mix and match” writer drives. With many controllers out on the market, the writer drives need to be of the exact same make and model. This causes a problem later on down the line if one of the targets breaks or if you want to upgrade to a better, more up-to-date burner. A burner can be discontinued or obsolete in a matter of months considering how fast technology advances these days. In other words, you might not be able to find the original make and model of the drive that came with the duplicator. So, make sure the controller installed in the duplicator has the ability to replace burners so that all bases are covered should problems arise in the future.

Another aspect of the controller is the way that it partitions the hard drive. I recommend controllers with the Dynamic Hard drive Partition (DHP) technology. What this does is that it creates partitions according to the size of each master disc image so that no hard disc drive space is wasted. Many controllers partition a hard drive in 5 GB partitions regardless of whether or not the full 5 GB is used or not. This wastes the remaining HDD space. Controllers with the DHP technology will round to the next GB meaning that a 1.7 GB image will use only 2 GB instead of 5 GB.

While the ROM drive is not as an integral component of the manual duplicator as compared to the controller or writer drives, it is still a good idea to choose a duplicator with a ROM drive that is compatible with the rest of the other components. Depending on the combination used in the set-up of the duplicator, the ROM drive should be manufactured by top companies such as Sony, Pioneer/Asus, or LG. Again, this all depends on the other components inside of the duplicator and how well they all interact and work together. Incompatibility is usually a result of a faulty or cheap, off-brand controller.

There are several different CD/DVD writer drives available out on the market. While Plextor is probably the best brand when it comes to these drives due to its efficiency, compatibility, and low error rate, Plextor is very expensive. Although Plextor is a great brand, I would not buy Plextor just because the performance does not outweigh the cost. There are several just as reliable drives that can probably perform just as well as the Plextor for far less the price. For DVD burners, I would go with Pioneer, Sony/NEC, or LG. For CD burners, I would recommend Sony or Lite-on. With these aforementioned burners, you can ensure compatibility with most media. Of course, if you can afford it, go with Plextor.

Now that you have general knowledge of these tower duplicators, it is hoped that you can be more confident in your purchase. Just remember to ask a lot of questions. Once you do make a purchase, you can relax and have the duplicator do all of the work for you. You won’t be needing that Starbucks coffee after all since now you don’t have to worry about staying up all night finishing a duplication job using one burner like how you used to.