Hardware Review of:
Backpack 
CD Re-Writer 

Why portable? I gave this quite a bit of thought, since there aren’t that many portable CD re-writers on the market and they are more expensive than internal drives. We have three computers in our house – mine, John’s and a laptop. One of the uses I envisioned for the CD burner was making backups, and it made sense to have one little machine that I could lug from computer to computer to do it all. I also anticipated taking the burner on the road. I sometimes visit clients who don’t have a Zip drive and need to send me big graphics. Being able to burn a CD on site made sense. I also lend my equipment (just call me Lady Bountiful; my external Zip drive and LCD panel have been in some of the finest homes) and I thought a portable CD burner could help my friends in times of need. A portable drive might not make sense for everyone, but consider it if you have more than one computer, if you will use it in more than one location (home, school and work) or if there are no empty bays in your computer to install an internal drive. 

I’m pleased as punch with mine. It’s not small, measuring about 10 inches long, 7 inches wide and almost two inches deep, but I can fit it into my pack along with the laptop. It’s sturdy – I confess that I’ve knocked it onto the carpet (about a two-foot drop) several times and there have been no ill effects. The version I got comes with a parallel cable, but for an extra $30 you can purchase a USB adapter, which I am thinking of doing. There is a printer pass-through on the back so you can plug the backpack into the parallel port and the printer into the backpack. I already have my printer and scanner daisy chained, so I just detach the printer cable and hook the Backpack up when I need to use it. No big deal.

System requirements
A Pentium computer, parallel port, Windows 96, 98 or NT 4, 16 MD of RAM, 10 MB disk space for installing the software and 10 MB of free disk space for each minute of music you want to record. The parallel port needs to be an EPP (Enhanced Parallel Port), an ECP (Extended Capabilities Port) or IEEE-1284 port. Most Pentiums sold since 1996 have an EPP-compatible port. The instructions that come with the Backpack explain how you can determine your port type. The Backpack will work, with some tweaking, in DOS and Windows 3.1X. Although this is not guaranteed, they do offer instruction on how to do this on the Micro-Solutions Web site. The directions are short and clear, explaining how to install the drivers if you don’t have another CD-ROM drive, how to troubleshoot problems, and how to get tech support. 

The Backpack has an audio jack that you can use to hook up headphones, a set of speakers, or to patch into the sound card on your computer. This would be useful if the Backpack is the only CD player on your computer.

It takes about a minute to install. Plug it into the parallel port, insert the CD and install the drivers and two optional Adaptec programs. Reboot. You’re done.

The write speed is 4X. To put this in perspective, I backed up my file folders containing all of my photos from France: 1,233 files, 36 folders, 100.6 MB. From start to finish, it took nine minutes. 

The two Adaptec programs that come with the Backpack are Direct CD and Easy CD Creator. I’m still a little bit fuzzy about when to use one as opposed to the other. I’ve used Easy CD Creator the most. It works for both data and music. You can burn a CD using a step-by-step wizard, or go through the procedure manually. The interface looks a lot like Windows Explorer. Just drag the folders or files that you want to include on the CD onto the layout and click on the burn button. There are a couple of neat features that aren’t immediately apparent. You can save your layouts. If a file has changed since you last used it (an amended Word file, for example) it will ask you if you want to use the updated file. If you dragged over too many files to fit on the CD, it will let you know. I figured out how to make compilation disks from multiple music CDs. First, You have to insert each CD and select the tracks you wish to copy. Keep them stacked up in order! Then, when you’re ready to burn your compilation, you have to feed the CDs back into your CD drive in the order you originally logged them in. This program also makes a list of all of the files on a CD, formatted to fit in a jewel case insert. 

Easy CD Creator also comes with a utility that duplicated CDs – CD Copier Deluxe. If you are just dubbing CDs, this works a lot faster. It also allows you to make a temporary copy of the CD on your hard drive, which speeds up the process even more, and allows you to copy CDs when you just have one CD burner/player on your computer.

I haven’t found much use for Direct CD. According to the instructions, it is less versatile than Easy CD Creator; you can’t use it for music CDs, for example. It seems to be geared for rewritable CDs rather than one-time burn ones, and seems to be an excellent utility if you are using your CD burner for disk backups. It turns your CD burner into another drive that you can use just like another hard drive.

The Backpack CD-Rewriter retails for $259.95, and you’ll see it in full price at local stores such as COMP USA, Best Buy and Office Depot. There’s a list of online retailers on the Micro-Solutions Web site. I’ve seen it for sale on the Internet for as low as $219. You can get a comparable internal CD burner for about half that price, so this is only a good investment if you need the portability.

The Micro-Solutions web site has an excellent trouble-shooting guide. You can write to them at 

Micro Solutions, Inc. 
132 West Lincoln Hwy, 
DeKalb, IL. 60115