August 19th, 1999

Review
Burn CDs on Your Mac With A Yamaha CD-RW

Yamaha CRW4416SXZ CD-RW Drive
Contact and Other Information
Manufacturer: Yamaha
Product Info: CRW4416SXZ CD-RW
Description: External SCSI CD-RW
(CD-ROM Read, CD-R Write, CD-RW Rewrite)

Address: Yamaha Corporation of America
Consumer Products Division
6600 Orangethrope Ave.
Buena Park, CA 90620
U.S.A.

Price: US$499.95 Retail

US$330.00 Street


Telephone: 1-714-522-9011
1-888-926-2426, 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific Time (Monday through Friday)
Fax: 1-714-527-5782
Requirements Mac OS 7.x or later
SCSI Port

System Used For Testing Power Computing Power Center Pro 210
Newer Technology MAXPowr 300 MHz G3 Upgrade
Yamaha CRW4416SXZ External CD-RW Review
by
John F. Braun

Introduction

With the popularity of large hard drives and cable modems, the size of the files that folks are using, storing, exchanging and (hopefully) backing up keeps growing. Although there are many read/write storage solutions available, most suffer from the chicken-and-egg dilemma. The CD-ROM format is, short of a floppy, the most prevalent format available, spanning Mac, UNIX and PC worlds. Up until a few years ago, CD recording systems were priced out of the range of mere mortals. But times have changed, so we decided to check out the Yamaha CRW4416SXZ external CD-RW drive.

Included Goodies

The package consists of the drive itself, a Quick Start guide, a Yamaha/Adaptec installation CD, a blank CD-R and blank CD-RW to get you started, power cords, Adobe PageMill and PhotoDeluxe software, 10 blank CD labels, and of course the warranty registration card. The unit comes with a 1 year warranty.

Hardware Setup

This unit uses the newer HD50F SCSI connector (50-Pin connector), so make sure you get some cables with the proper connectors when you purchase the unit, since there are no cables or adapters included with the package (which is normal with most, if not all, CD-R and CD-RW drives). If you plan on using this unit with a PC, you'll also need a SCSI adapter. With the exception of the Blue & White G3 and the iMac, all modern Mac computers have some sort of SCSI port. iMac users can get a USB to SCSI converter from Microtech, Ariston, and others. Blue & White G3 owners can either order their machines with SCSI, or obtain an after-market solution from a company such as Adaptec.

Setting the SCSI ID and termination is a snap, with the switches clearly marked on the rear of the unit. The SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 markings on the SCSI connectors may be confusing. The labels don't refer to the SCSI standards, but rather to the fact that there are 2 connectors. Having two connectors allow daisy-chaining of other devices. Less sophisticated units may only have a single connector, requiring you to put them at the end of the SCSI chain.

The form factor of the unit allows it to fit nicely on top of a standard minitower case.

There are also two Line Out jacks, allowing you to output line level audio.

Rear View

Controls and Indicators

To get things started, you'll probably want to turn the unit on. The Power button is thoughtfully mounted on the front, unlike some other units that require you to fumble around the back of the unit to turn it on and off. The eject button will eject the tray, which initially contains a cardboard insert to protect against damage during shipping. Once you insert a CD, you can either press the eject button again, or give the tray a little push, and the CD will be loaded

Front View

There are two indicators, an On/Disc light and a Read/Write light. The On/Disc light will be orange if the power is on and there is no disc inserted, and green if there is power and a disc in the drive. The Read/Write light is green when reading, and orange when writing.

A manual eject mechanism is available, where you insert a paper clip or other stiff metal object into a hole to eject the media. Hopefully, you'll never have to use this. There is also a stereo headphone jack and volume control, used for listening to audio CDs.

Software Setup

Using the standard Apple CD/DVD Driver, the drive was unable to mount any CDs. Although the documentation does tell one how to install the Adaptec Toast package, there is no mention that this step is required if you want to read a CD. Installing Toast will add an extension called Toast CD Reader, which will allow the drive to read CDs. Make sure you have certain extensions, such as Foreign File Access, Apple Photo Access, Audio CD Access, High Sierra File Access and ISO 9660 File Access activated if you want to read these formats. You can also mount a CD using the Toast application. Since the bundled version of Toast was 3.5.6, the Toast 3.5.7 update was applied.

The bundled Adobe software, PhotoDeluxe 2.0 and PageMill 2.0, are a welcome addition, since you'll probably be using the drive for graphics and web creation tasks at some point.

The firmware is flash upgradable, though there was no need for this since the unit came with the latest 1.0g firmware.

Trouble in Paradise

For mounting CDs, users of clones or non-Apple CD hardware may skip the Toast installation and try to get their driver, such as FWB CD-ROM Toolkit or CD-ROM SpeedTools (CD-ROM SpeedTools was recently featured in Monday's Mac Gadget) working with this new drive. Based on extensive analysis in the Mac Observer Labs, CD-ROM SpeedTools users will have no problems, but CD-ROM Toolkit users will run into issues, described below, even after installing a driver update.

Using the Drive

The bundled Toast application does a fine job of creating different types of CD data. There are several options, so reading the Toast documentation, included in PDF format, is suggested.

If you are using Apple-compatible CD-ROM hardware with Apple's CD-ROM/DVD driver, you shouldn't experience any compatibility issues.

Unfortunately, when used with CD-ROM Toolkit, Toast reported a Mac OS Error with a result code of -50 when attempting to process an audio CD. The solution to this problem is to play "musical extensions" and disable CD-ROM Toolkit when dealing with an audio CD. Unfortunately, this eliminates access to other, non-Apple CD-ROM drives. Adaptec recommends using CD-ROM SpeedTools to solve this problem. Except for this issue, the creation of audio and data CD-R and CD-RW disks was flawless.

The drive is compatible with the popular Retrospect backup package from Dantz, though you'll probably need to obtain the Retrospect 4.1 Driver Update. The 4X write speed of 600K/second, combined with the low cost of CD-R and CD-RW media, provides a good balance between performance and affordability. CD-R and CD-RW media can preserve data anywhere from 30 to 200 years! Folks who have had a hard drive last for this long are welcome to speak up.

The Bottom Line

The Yamaha CRW4416SXZ is a solid, well-designed piece of hardware. Although it may take an extra effort to find the right cables and avoid possible third-party CD-ROM driver issues, once you have everything set up, you'll be creating CDs and backing up your data with a minimum of effort. Plus, with 16X read speed, you can replace an existing, slower CD-ROM.


Final Score (Maximum score is 5 Gadgies)
4 Gadgies
Pros Excellent hardware design
Flash upgradable firmware
Good collection of bundled software
Compatible with both Mac and PC
Cons Possible conflicts with third-party CD-ROM drivers
Setup documentation needs work