Help me get up to speed with RAW DAO etc guys!!!!

[Vic Meldrew]

This time last year, there was only ONE CD Writer and reader combination worth going for, which was....DRUM ROLL......
The Mitsumi 4804TE, and a Toshiba DVD Rom Drive (preferably RPC-1 !!). With this set up, and as I can personally attest there's virtually nothing you cannot copy with it.
Whilst I'm not particularly looking for a replacement ATM, it'd be nice to know what's generally regarded as the bees knees of late?
Also, and I think this should be put at the head of ALL CDR forums on EVERY separate page, UNLESS YOUR WRITER IS CAPABLE OF RAW DAO, then you're pretty much F**KED right from the start, a LOT of the time, if you want to make reliable back-ups!!!

So then, what's king of the hill this year then? Plextor?

Another thing, if CloneCD really does make 'perfect' 1:1 copies, then how come you have to e-mail Olli, every time you find something, that it WON'T copy??!! Like SafeDisk 2.0 for example. I remember when 2.1.0.4 was current, that when I went to back up my multisession Jimmy White's 2 Cueball CD, CloneCD fell flat on it's face with another coaster, due to....a 'bug discovered in 2.1.0.4 when copying multisession CD's blah blah blah'....the later release (AFTER I e-mailed Olli worked fine thereafter incidentally)!! If it's REALLY doing a 1:1 RAW copy, then why doesn't it do a DUPLICATE, 'warts 'n all' ??

Cheers