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Hi everyone. Glad to see that the forums are back online and I have a few questions I hope you answer for me. I manage to get my hands on a Pioneer BDR-XDO8 optical drives some time ago. I did run som tests and there are no issues burning cd-r, dvd-r and bd-r. I have no way to quality scan the discs
but I did read them back with a real old Pioneer BDR-206 5.25 SATA drive without any issues. Now for the questions.

Is there any difference in burning quality as I only power the drive with USB3 power from the computer compared to powering
the burner with a dedicated AC adapter ?

Will a Pioneer 5.25 device produce better quality burns or is it the same as my external BDR-XDO8 optical drive ?

Is there any need for quality checking burned discs, if you use quality media and only intend to burn CD-R, DVD-R and BD-R discs (no dual layer, no BSXL and so on). The optical discs are an extra precaution if my hard drives go bad. My main backup drives are mechanical 2.5 sata drives, I also mirror them for additional protection.

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I am thinking about getting another drive, mostly for reading back the disc (testing). I want to use my pioneer as little as possible, only for burning discs. These are the three drives I can get my hands on:

* Verbatim 43888 drive (slim drive, I am sure it has a LG device inside)
* The LG BP55EB40 SVC Code EB52 (slime drive)

It is possible to get hold of Pioneer UD03 or UD04 even tough it is not easy. The 5.25 Pioneer units are to expensive (scalpers) and rare.

What drive would you recommend for me and why ?

Xd08 is one of the best drives
Should be no difference in burning long as the drive has enough power
I would assume the new xd08 will be slightly better but they are probably about the same.

If you want one for disc checking get the buffalo drive from b&h if your in the USA

You can flash that one to do quality checks if you get the 5.25 one in the external case