Hardware Review of:
Blaster CD-RW 6424 
CD-ROM Recorder 

The Blaster 6424 drive is an internal model, which can replace a standard CD-ROM drive, or supplement it. The drive connects to an EIDE cable connector inside your computer. If you have expansion space and a spare connector, you can leave your existing CD-ROM drive installed; otherwise, you can replace the existing drive with the Blaster 6424. Leaving a current CD-ROM drive installed makes it slightly easier to copy a CD, since you can insert an original CD and the blank CD-ROM at the same time. Also, it may provide a faster CD-ROM for playback, since most drives are 32X or faster. 

Installation of the drive was easy, with very simple and legible instructions. Since I had no free drive bays nor an EIDE connector, I had to replace my Hewlett-Packard 2X2X6 CD-RW drive. Installation required unplugging three cables: the power cable, the EIDE signal cable, and the audio bypass cable. The last cable plugs directly into the sound card so you can play audio CDs in the background. Then I removed four screws that held the drive in place, and slid the old drive out of the computer. Then I slid the Blaster 6424 drive into the drive bay, secured it with the four screws, plugged in the three cables, and replace the cover plates on my computer case. 

Having completed the hardware installation, I next installed the software, which included two programs: the main CD-ROM burner, Nero; and Prassi, an installable file system packet writer, which lets you write to rewritable CD-ROMs just as though it is a standard drive. 

Nero (Burning ROM) is the CD recording software, which comes from Germany. I had hoped to use the Adaptec CD-Creator 4.0 software, which is very easy and fast, but it turned out to be incompatible (even though Adaptec lists it as compatible). Anyhow, Nero does the same job, although not as easily. 

The main reason I upgraded from the Hewlett-Packard 2X2X6 drive was to speed up operations. The Hewlett-Packard drive imposed too many limitations, both in writing to CD-ROMs and in CD-ROM playback. Actually, the slow playback speed was the major irritant; software installation from a 6X drive is really slow. The Blaster 6424 drive provided the extra speed I sought. I found the considerably CD-ROM writing, or burning, to be a pleasant bonus. 
 

So what do I use the drive for? Mostly for copying music CDs to play in my car stereo system. I can just click on Nero’s Copy CD command, and put the original CD in the drive, where it is copied to the hard drive. Then I put a blank CD-R disk in the drive, and a copy of the original is burned onto the blank disc. Pretty easy! Then I exercise a little creativity and make label to stick on the back side of the CD-R disc. 

I have tried using CD-ROMs for backing up a hard drive, but they only hold 650 MB, so aren’t well suited for a multi-GB hard drive. They are very good for backing up data files, however. I use them to store graphics, which tend to take up lots of disk space. For example: I recently used a digital camera to take photos at our office holiday party. The 120-odd photos took 91 MB of space. I burned the picture files onto a CD-ROM and took it to the office so others could see the pictures. They were a big hit! 

I wish I could tell you that I selected the Blaster 6424 drive after rigorous evaluation showed it to have exceptional performance, but in reality, I found it on sale at a very good price and took a chance. The Creative Labs Blaster 6424 CD-RW drive lists for $250, and is available at most computer stores.