About a month ago, my LG DVD burner started making coasters, even though 
it was still reading discs with no troubles. I investigated, determined 
that it was probably the burner itself, andbought a new one. That did 
indeed cure the problem.

However, at one point Google led me to an old discussion on the lifetime 
of burners, where a couple of the participants asserted that if you use 
a burner (They were talking about CD burners) for reading as well as 
burning, you will shorten its life considerably. Consequently, as long 
as my old burner still reads OK, I'll be using it for that and reserving 
my burner for burning.

Makes sense to do that, anyway, just from a wear-and-tear standpoint. 
But still I'm curious. The whole assertion sounds something like the 
hardware equivalent of an urban legend to me, but then stranger things 
are true. Does anybody know if it IS true? Or perhaps it was true of 
older hardware but not of more modern stuff?

TJ
-- 
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

On Thu, 27 May 2010 06:40:48 -0400, TJ wrote:

> About a month ago, my LG DVD burner started making coasters, even though
> it was still reading discs with no troubles. I investigated, determined
> that it was probably the burner itself, andbought a new one. That did
> indeed cure the problem.
> 
> However, at one point Google led me to an old discussion on the lifetime
> of burners, where a couple of the participants asserted that if you use
> a burner (They were talking about CD burners) for reading as well as
> burning, you will shorten its life considerably. Consequently, as long
> as my old burner still reads OK, I'll be using it for that and reserving
> my burner for burning.
> 
> Makes sense to do that, anyway, just from a wear-and-tear standpoint.
> But still I'm curious. The whole assertion sounds something like the
> hardware equivalent of an urban legend to me, but then stranger things
> are true. Does anybody know if it IS true? Or perhaps it was true of
> older hardware but not of more modern stuff?
> 
> TJ

I doubt that there is any truth to it. However DVD burners are so cheap 
that you might as well consider them to be disposable, I certainly 
wouldn't do anything to optimise their life. In fact even a cleaner kit 
is questionable as they are priced at 50% of the price of a new burner.

On 05/27/2010 08:08 AM, General Schvantzkoph wrote:
> On Thu, 27 May 2010 06:40:48 -0400, TJ wrote:
>
>> About a month ago, my LG DVD burner started making coasters, even though
>> it was still reading discs with no troubles. I investigated, determined
>> that it was probably the burner itself, andbought a new one. That did
>> indeed cure the problem.
>>
>> However, at one point Google led me to an old discussion on the lifetime
>> of burners, where a couple of the participants asserted that if you use
>> a burner (They were talking about CD burners) for reading as well as
>> burning, you will shorten its life considerably. Consequently, as long
>> as my old burner still reads OK, I'll be using it for that and reserving
>> my burner for burning.
>>
>> Makes sense to do that, anyway, just from a wear-and-tear standpoint.
>> But still I'm curious. The whole assertion sounds something like the
>> hardware equivalent of an urban legend to me, but then stranger things
>> are true. Does anybody know if it IS true? Or perhaps it was true of
>> older hardware but not of more modern stuff?
>>
>> TJ
>
> I doubt that there is any truth to it. However DVD burners are so cheap
> that you might as well consider them to be disposable, I certainly
> wouldn't do anything to optimise their life. In fact even a cleaner kit
> is questionable as they are priced at 50% of the price of a new burner.

A good idea for many people, I'm sure. But, things being what they are 
with my financial situation, I must get every moment of use that I can 
from any purchase. Helps keep me out of debt, a very comfortable position.

There are those who once called me *too* miserly. Then they lost their 
jobs, and picked up the habit themselves.

TJ
-- 
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

On Thu, 27 May 2010 08:21:17 -0400, TJ wrote:

> On 05/27/2010 08:08 AM, General Schvantzkoph wrote:
>> On Thu, 27 May 2010 06:40:48 -0400, TJ wrote:
>>
>>> About a month ago, my LG DVD burner started making coasters, even
>>> though it was still reading discs with no troubles. I investigated,
>>> determined that it was probably the burner itself, andbought a new
>>> one. That did indeed cure the problem.
>>>
>>> However, at one point Google led me to an old discussion on the
>>> lifetime of burners, where a couple of the participants asserted that
>>> if you use a burner (They were talking about CD burners) for reading
>>> as well as burning, you will shorten its life considerably.
>>> Consequently, as long as my old burner still reads OK, I'll be using
>>> it for that and reserving my burner for burning.
>>>
>>> Makes sense to do that, anyway, just from a wear-and-tear standpoint.
>>> But still I'm curious. The whole assertion sounds something like the
>>> hardware equivalent of an urban legend to me, but then stranger things
>>> are true. Does anybody know if it IS true? Or perhaps it was true of
>>> older hardware but not of more modern stuff?
>>>
>>> TJ
>>
>> I doubt that there is any truth to it. However DVD burners are so cheap
>> that you might as well consider them to be disposable, I certainly
>> wouldn't do anything to optimise their life. In fact even a cleaner kit
>> is questionable as they are priced at 50% of the price of a new burner.
> 
> A good idea for many people, I'm sure. But, things being what they are
> with my financial situation, I must get every moment of use that I can
> from any purchase. Helps keep me out of debt, a very comfortable
> position.
> 
> There are those who once called me *too* miserly. Then they lost their
> jobs, and picked up the habit themselves.
> 
> TJ

The usual cause of DVD failure is dirt on the lens not component failure. 
The cheapest solution is a DVD cleaner kit, although at $10 for a cleaner 
vs $20 for a new DVD burner the savings aren't that great. Dust is 
function of time not use. If the laser has a 10,000 hour life expectancy 
(I think it's really closer to 100,000 hours, but lets use 10,000 to be 
ultra conservative), then at an hour a day that's 27 years. Time based 
degradation is much more likely to kill the device then use based so I 
wouldn't worry about it.

On 27 May 2010 12:08:34 GMT, General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:

>I doubt that there is any truth to it. However DVD burners are so cheap 
>that you might as well consider them to be disposable, I certainly 
>wouldn't do anything to optimise their life. In fact even a cleaner kit 
>is questionable as they are priced at 50% of the price of a new burner.

Optical drive cleaning kits are a hoax.  Scraping off dirt (read: tiny
rocks) at high speed is only effective if you want to be sure a drive
has been destroyed before replacing it.  They are only popular because
idiots see the kits as a tool that they have the skills to operate.

Now if only I could get my father to quit doing daily defrags on his
windows machine before he manages to do it during a disk error and
destroys all his data.  (again, popular with idiots because it is one
of the few tools they feel competant to operate)

On 2010-05-27, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:

> My burner (also an LG, for what it's worth).....

Not much.  It's been my short experience that LG products are not what
I'd call "quality".  The only reason I keep my piece-of-crap LG cell
phone is it has a ringer that does Western Bell proud.  I can hear it
ringing clear across the room.  

nb

In article <htli7i$6kg$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
TJ@noneofyour.business (TJ) writes:

> About a month ago, my LG DVD burner started making coasters, even
> though it was still reading discs with no troubles. I investigated,
> determined that it was probably the burner itself, andbought a new
> one. That did indeed cure the problem.
>
> However, at one point Google led me to an old discussion on the
> lifetime of burners, where a couple of the participants asserted
> that if you use a burner (They were talking about CD burners) for
> reading as well as burning, you will shorten its life considerably.
> Consequently, as long as my old burner still reads OK, I'll be using
> it for that and reserving my burner for burning.
>
> Makes sense to do that, anyway, just from a wear-and-tear standpoint.
> But still I'm curious. The whole assertion sounds something like the
> hardware equivalent of an urban legend to me, but then stranger things
> are true. Does anybody know if it IS true? Or perhaps it was true of
> older hardware but not of more modern stuff?

My burner (also an LG, for what it's worth) started doing the same
thing a while ago.  Although I got a new one myself, I took the old
one apart as much as I could and gave it a thorough cleaning: no
cleaner kit, just a bit of work with a vacuum cleaner, a spray can,
and a clean rag.  I put it back together and popped it back into the
machine alongside the new one.  It's working just fine again.  I've
been using it for both reading and writing all along.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

On May 27, 6:40=A0am, TJ <T...@noneofyour.business> wrote:
> About a month ago, my LG DVD burner started making coasters, even though
> it was still reading discs with no troubles. I investigated, determined
> that it was probably the burner itself, andbought a new one. That did
> indeed cure the problem.
>
> However, at one point Google led me to an old discussion on the lifetime
> of burners, where a couple of the participants asserted that if you use
> a burner (They were talking about CD burners) for reading as well as
> burning, you will shorten its life considerably. Consequently, as long
> as my old burner still reads OK, I'll be using it for that and reserving
> my burner for burning.
>
> Makes sense to do that, anyway, just from a wear-and-tear standpoint.
> But still I'm curious. The whole assertion sounds something like the
> hardware equivalent of an urban legend to me, but then stranger things
> are true. Does anybody know if it IS true? Or perhaps it was true of
> older hardware but not of more modern stuff?
>
> TJ
> --
> There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

The burner's laser is the heart of the beast.  Most any of these
devices are likely built from parts sources from where ever it was
cheapest at the time.  While other companies will not sacrifice
quality for cost of manufacture.....

Just because it has the LG logo on it, doesn't mean that it was
manufactured for LG....It only means that the device was private
labeled/branded.

To answer your question:  I've had CD/DVD players and writers last 5-6
years before they were replaced out of obsolescence.  While other
times I've had CD/DVD writers last only a few months.  It depends
largely on the environment and whether curious fingers have "looked"
at the inside workings (kids) or if the unit got knocked or hit at
some point....Other times, it is just cheap components which make up
the device which lead to a short lifespan.

It isn't uncommon but it IS unfortunate that stuff doesn't last
anymore.

On May 27, 6:40=A0am, TJ <T...@noneofyour.business> wrote:
> About a month ago, my LG DVD burner started making coasters, even though
> it was still reading discs with no troubles. I investigated, determined
> that it was probably the burner itself, andbought a new one. That did
> indeed cure the problem.
>
> However, at one point Google led me to an old discussion on the lifetime
> of burners, where a couple of the participants asserted that if you use
> a burner (They were talking about CD burners) for reading as well as
> burning, you will shorten its life considerably. Consequently, as long
> as my old burner still reads OK, I'll be using it for that and reserving
> my burner for burning.
>
> Makes sense to do that, anyway, just from a wear-and-tear standpoint.
> But still I'm curious. The whole assertion sounds something like the
> hardware equivalent of an urban legend to me, but then stranger things
> are true. Does anybody know if it IS true? Or perhaps it was true of
> older hardware but not of more modern stuff?
>
> TJ
> --
> There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

The burner's laser is the heart of the beast.  Most any of these
devices are likely built from parts sources from where ever it was
cheapest at the time.  While other companies will not sacrifice
quality for cost of manufacture.....

Just because it has the LG logo on it, doesn't necessarily mean that
it was
manufactured BY LG....It COULD mean that the device was private
labeled/branded FOR LG.

To answer your question:  I've had CD/DVD players and writers last 5-6
years before they were replaced out of obsolescence.  While other
times I've had CD/DVD writers last only a few months.  It depends
largely on the environment and whether curious fingers have "looked"
at the inside workings (kids) or if the unit got knocked or hit at
some point....Other times, it is just cheap components which make up
the device which lead to a short lifespan.

It isn't uncommon but it IS unfortunate that stuff doesn't last
anymore.

On Thu, 27 May 2010, TJ wrote:

> About a month ago, my LG DVD burner started making coasters, even though it 
> was still reading discs with no troubles. I investigated, determined that it 
> was probably the burner itself, andbought a new one. That did indeed cure the 
> problem.
>
> However, at one point Google led me to an old discussion on the lifetime of 
> burners, where a couple of the participants asserted that if you use a burner 
> (They were talking about CD burners) for reading as well as burning, you will 
> shorten its life considerably. Consequently, as long as my old burner still 
> reads OK, I'll be using it for that and reserving my burner for burning.
>
I don't know, but one issue may be based on the early days.  Drives to 
read the disks arrived first, and dropped in price as things went along.
Drives for writing to the CDROMs (and later DVDROMs) must have lagged
behind the read only drives.  Given that, if you were paying fifty dollars
for a read only drive, and then $200 or more for one that writes (examples
pulled out of thin air), it made sense to wear out the read only drive
for routine reads.  Most people would read more than write, and if you 
wear out the drive, it's cheaper to buy that $50 readonly drive than
the $200 one that writes.

Obviously, that changes with time, with very little differential between
readonly drives and those that write.

Note that it requires considerably more power to write to a blank
CD or DVD than it does to read one.  That may put more stress on the
drive (or at least the laser), and thus frequent writing may wear
it out faster than reading.

    Michael

Hello,

TJ a �crit :
> 
> However, at one point Google led me to an old discussion on the lifetime 
> of burners, where a couple of the participants asserted that if you use 
> a burner (They were talking about CD burners) for reading as well as 
> burning, you will shorten its life considerably. Consequently, as long 
> as my old burner still reads OK, I'll be using it for that and reserving 
> my burner for burning.
> 
> Makes sense to do that, anyway, just from a wear-and-tear standpoint. 
> But still I'm curious. The whole assertion sounds something like the 
> hardware equivalent of an urban legend to me, but then stranger things 
> are true. Does anybody know if it IS true? Or perhaps it was true of 
> older hardware but not of more modern stuff?

I don't know if it's true, but I heard of that too. The explaination was
that the optical blocks of early CD burners was heavier and more fragile
than those of CD readers. So it was advised to use a CD burner only for
image copying or burning which involves sequential read/write operation
thus smooth head moves, but not for normal read operation possibly
involving random head moves.

AZ Nomad <aznomad.3@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> writes:

> On 27 May 2010 12:08:34 GMT, General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>I doubt that there is any truth to it. However DVD burners are so cheap 
>>that you might as well consider them to be disposable, I certainly 
>>wouldn't do anything to optimise their life. In fact even a cleaner kit 
>>is questionable as they are priced at 50% of the price of a new burner.
>
> Optical drive cleaning kits are a hoax.  Scraping off dirt (read: tiny
> rocks) at high speed is only effective if you want to be sure a drive
> has been destroyed before replacing it.  They are only popular because
> idiots see the kits as a tool that they have the skills to operate.

It is okay to see a kit which involves touching the lens. Now I wonder
why are there kits which have a "cleaning disk"... The whole thing is
nonsense, it is /optical/. Unless the disk has a magnetic field strong
enough to grab all the dust but weak enough not to damage the reader, I
don't see the point.

Cleaning an optical device is about cleaning the lens. Using a cloth
might work, but I'd not risk scratching the lens due to some pointy
piece of dust. It would be like cleaning your glasses (if you wear
glasses) with a cloth when there is sand on them.

Perhaps water or some cleaning liquid?

> Now if only I could get my father to quit doing daily defrags on his
> windows machine before he manages to do it during a disk error and
> destroys all his data.  (again, popular with idiots because it is one
> of the few tools they feel competant to operate)

A defrag a day. Sounds... clever...

-- 
Nuno J. Silva
gopher://sdf-eu.org/1/users/njsg

On 05/27/2010 09:20 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> In article<htli7i$6kg$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
> TJ@noneofyour.business (TJ) writes:
>
>> About a month ago, my LG DVD burner started making coasters, even
>> though it was still reading discs with no troubles. I investigated,
>> determined that it was probably the burner itself, andbought a new
>> one. That did indeed cure the problem.
>>
>> However, at one point Google led me to an old discussion on the
>> lifetime of burners, where a couple of the participants asserted
>> that if you use a burner (They were talking about CD burners) for
>> reading as well as burning, you will shorten its life considerably.
>> Consequently, as long as my old burner still reads OK, I'll be using
>> it for that and reserving my burner for burning.
>>
>> Makes sense to do that, anyway, just from a wear-and-tear standpoint.
>> But still I'm curious. The whole assertion sounds something like the
>> hardware equivalent of an urban legend to me, but then stranger things
>> are true. Does anybody know if it IS true? Or perhaps it was true of
>> older hardware but not of more modern stuff?
>
> My burner (also an LG, for what it's worth) started doing the same
> thing a while ago.  Although I got a new one myself, I took the old
> one apart as much as I could and gave it a thorough cleaning: no
> cleaner kit, just a bit of work with a vacuum cleaner, a spray can,
> and a clean rag.  I put it back together and popped it back into the
> machine alongside the new one.  It's working just fine again.  I've
> been using it for both reading and writing all along.
>
	About once a year I pop in a cleaner disk with a very small
and very soft brush.  This wipes dust off the lens.  I have seen
people use this sort of thing with good resolution to their problems
even on read only CDs.  By regular but not frequent cleaning you
avoid the problems that long uncleaned lenses generate.
	I don't burn a lot of CD/DVDs but I regularly make my
own bootable disks from iso files on magazine and downloaded.
It makes me feel like I have done something to get a verified
disk out and use to help someone with a problem or as I did
this weekend to download and install an Linux upgrade.
	Cleaner disk is only about $20 and get shared between
about 3 or 4 players and drives.
	People who smoke or who have roommates that smoke
will have more problems with the optical and other drives.
Same goes for burning incense.

	later
	bliss