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FireWire Burners: CD Cyclone CDRW Drive a Winner


The CD Cyclone CDRW Drive is a 12/10/32x CD-Rewritable drive (not to be confused with the 4/4/10x USB version) that works with any FireWire Macintosh. I have been using it with a Pismo PowerBook G3 for about two weeks and it has been great. The CD Cyclone CDRW ships with Toast OEM and is a breeze to install.

cdrevo4.jpg

Features include:

  • Extremely fast 12x10x32 CDRW Technology
  • Burn-Proof* technology for No-Buffer Underruns when writing fast
  • Revolutionary external FireWire design
  • 12x Record, 10x Rewrite, and 32x Read
  • Record a full length CD in about 7 minutes
  • Firewire connectivity for Plug and Play while the computer is On
  • Compatible with a large number of CD-R and CD-RW media
  • Easy to transport around the office with stylish handle
  • Soft, desk friendly feet won’t scatch your desktop
  • Stackable design
  • Includes Toast Software for Macintosh or Nero Software for PC

One caveat to look out for is that the CD Cyclone CDRW requires that the Toast CD Reader extension be installed for the drive to be seen by Toast. I was pulling my hair out for about two days trying to figure out why Toast could not find the burner after a re-install of the Mac OS before I decided to RTFM.

The beauty of the CD Cyclone runs more than skin deep, but if skin is important you can choose between the beautiful Bondi, Ice, Ruby, Indigo and Metallic enclosures. At 12x, you can burn a 74 minute audio CD in just shy of 15 minutes – a far cry from the 60+ minutes it would take with my previous FireWire burner, a 2x Sony Spressa CDX120E.

If you are looking for a good Firewire CDRW drive and you are concerned with speed, give the CD Cyclone a try, it looks great and is much faster than the USB CDRW offerings out there.

Visit the CD Cyclone in person at Macworld Expo SF 2001 [09-12 January 2001] Booth # 1449.

By Jason O'Grady

Founded the PowerPage in 1995.