[Joe King]

I've been asking tech types lately what they recommend for the best CD writer for doing data backups and it's been virtually unanimous that the Plextor 16x10x40x is the best on the market todday.

Here's an exhaustive review of that unit verus the comparable Yamaha with more bench test graphs and charts than you'd ever want to see, and I'm sure it answers all the rest of your questions:

####://www.nvnews.net/envy/reviews/burners/burners.shtml

(They gave the Plextor the best rating across the board.)