Any recommendations? Planning on buying an LG H42N this weekend, and I would appreciate enclosure recos.. Vantec NextStar work well with DVDRWs?
ACK - 5.25", not 3.5" Sorry for the confyuuzhion…
The Vantec Nexstar looks the best of the lot available here in India. I doubt you could go wrong with it. Could probably check with Eazy and Quadmaster since they both have laid their hands on the Vantec (although not the 5.25" versions IIRC). I guess it would be wiser to opt for the Firewire versions?
Another cheaper option is the Zippy’s one. Seems decent enough, and Supra came all the way from Bangalore to Chennai just to pick up a couple :P. Have one for a 2.5" lappy disk and it runs fine although the PCB for the chipset does look a little cheaply made.
P.s: Running out of cabinet space? 
^Thanks for the suggestions. Not cabinet space, but free IDE channels! Seagate 200GB on primary, 2x320GB SATA and then Benq 1640 and Pio 111 on secondary IDE. Want an external drive anyway, to hook up to the laptop.
I think the Vantecs should be good. I’ll check up on what chipset they use.. hopefully the Oxford 911 or 911+.
I’ve seen people doing 18X burns on an external drive on CDF. Awesome!
The Zippy uses a jmicron chip and works really well. Most of the time it maxes out the usb bandwidth at 33MB/s. Considering that its so cheap, its not a bad deal ;). Is the H42N good? The H20 and H22 seemed to have less favorable reviews than the H10 and H12.
H42N seems to be excellent. Renesas Chipset again, as opposed to the Panny chipset on the H20 and 22, which are quite good drives, IMO.
Cool, I’ll go check out the Zippy. Indicative price?
The 3.5" is 1200 bucks. Not sure of 5.25" but should be around the same i guess.
^So I just ask for Zippy 5.25" drive enclosure? Firewire included?Or is it only USB2?
I picked up a Zippy 3.5" HDD (IDE only) casing for 400 bucks in Hyd. Quite good in terms of build quality as well as speed. Well worth the money. No idea about the 5.25" cases. But going for a very costly enclosure’s like the Vantec ones for a DVD Writer dosnt make sense. good speed and average build quality should do.
^^Mine is the SATA+IDE… probably the reason why it costs more. This is only USB2… no firewire.
I couldnt find a good casing for my H42N in NP. Everyone had the techcom and enter ones. Not even transcend in 5.25.
Anyway I had to get one so I bought the techcom casing. I can comfortably burn at 18X speeds.
Techhead, I’ll be purchasing a hitachi pata HDD and a 3.5 inch vantec casing most probably this saturday from computer shop. If you like, I can ask about the 5.25 inch vantec casing availabillity. Oh..are you B’lore based btw?
I spoke to Nilesh of APEX for the Vantec Nexstar 540U2BK it is a 5.25" USB external case and he quoted 2575/- … which costs more the burner or this case ? 
^^ how much did the H42N cost?
I thought so too… but… believe me if you get the Vantec case you will show the case off more than the burner 
^Stormy - it’s 1900 at NP. Getting it this weekend.
@Eazy - umm… i’ll think about it 
guys, in chennai i could get only techcom to make dvdwriter external.
it cost around 900. But the guy advised against it. What do you guys reckon?
how good would be the quality and failure rate if i have to burn dvds using this external casing on my rig(768mb) and lappy(512mb) ?
he suggested a new external writer for 6k min.
EDIT:
https://www.sirindia.com/details.asp?ProductID=10123435
I was looking for a dvd writer with casing, for my laptop about a couple of months ago. Finally I settled for H12N with a local brand (Matrix) casing offering USB 2.0 connectivity only. Initially the dude from PC guide( Lamington Road), wasn’t able to open the screws from some other casing which had firewire connectivity. Just my luck, I tell you. I was skeptical about the USB boot part from this external drive combination, but it worked! So, the 1700+700 deal really went good, atleast so far. Can do 16x writes easily with the enclosure. I gave up the Nexstar option when Apex told me its about 2.5k, seriously ‘charane ki murgi, barane ka masala!’
I have the H42N in a techcom casing. I cant say about the quality of burn coz its a LG writer. But the failure rate is 0. I have burnt over 40 DVDs so far and none failed.
So what are the good options for 5.25 Enclosures.
I too was thinking of buying one but vantec looks damn costly.
Can someone plz conclude them.