LaCie has announced a new mail-in rebate which drops the cost of its 24x10x40x CD-RW drive to US$299. The drive sports both USB and FireWire support, and features BURN-Proof buffer underrun protection. The drive will be featured in LaCie’s presence at next week’s Macworld Conference & Expo in New York City, in booth 1913.
At 24x, the new drive burns CD-Rs at about 3.6 MB/s, according to LaCie. It can burn a CD-R in about 3 minutes, or rewrite a CD-RW disc at about 1.5 MB/s. LaCie notes that the drive is certified for use with iTunes, Apple’s freely available digital music playback, ripping and burning software. 24x-rated media is still in short supply in some locations, however — LaCie noted the drive will attempt to burn 16x discs at 24x, and if it fails, will “downshift” to 16x. LaCie’s own branded 16x CD-Rs will work fine at the higher speed, said the company.
The drive incorporates both USB and FireWire controllers, enabling it to work on Macs equipped with either interface. USB is considerably slower than FireWire however, so the drive works considerably slower on a USB interface — about 750 KB/s, instead.
BURN-Proof buffer underrun technology helps make sure that a steady stream of data is always available for the CD-R. The technology helps reduce the likelihood the drive will produce “coasters” — CD-Rs which have been ruined due to a faulty burn procedure.
The LaCie 24x10x40x CD-RW is available from retailers for $329 — $299 after a $30 mail-in rebate. The drive ships in LaCie’s SE2100 casing and includes FireWire and USB cables, an international power supply, cross-platform LaCie Recording Utilities (which includes Adaptec Toast for Mac users) and three CD-R discs. LaCie also manufactures the drive in an ultra-SCSI version.