CD duplication, simultaneous burning possible?

[kevineugenius]

There's no CD burning section, so I figured the audio folks might be the best people for this question. If there is a better section, I apologize and thanks in advance to whichever mod moves the topic.

A local band asked me if it would be cheaper to assemble a PC with 10 CD burners or to buy a CD duplication machine (~$900) to self-produce some sample albums. I honestly have no idea if it's even possible, and my Googleings have turned up empty.

I assume I'd need to get some PCI interface cards for additional ports, but that can't be too hard, the drives themselves don't cost much, so I theorize I could put the hardware together for around $600. If it is possible, does it require lots of CPU power? Is some uber-expensive software needed?

 

[Elledan]

I'm pretty sure Nero and such support multiple burns simultaneously but you may want to check. I do know that using a PC for CD duplication isn't an uncommon approach.

 

[kevineugenius]

With a little more digging I've found some programs that claim they can do it, one at $250 and one at $550. Nero doesn't officially say they support it. I cant really find any system requirements for such an operation though. Might be a fun experiment, might be a bite in the arse...

 

[Sycraft]

I'd look at getting a machine to do it. I don't know that you'd end up a whole lot cheaper with a computer once you take in to account the cost of all the drives and such, and there is room for screwups. The machines are pretty simple and single purpose and do a good job.

 

[keenan]

Should be pretty straightforward, about the only problem I foresee is disk bandwidth for 10 simultaneous high-speed burns. As long as they're all burning the same image though this should be dealt with easily by the OS's file cache, or if necessary a ramdisk, just make sure you have enough memory to hold the whole image in 'free' memory.

I would do this with a Linux box and cdrecord (for ISO) or cdrdao (for WAV/CUE). You can easily specify which device to write to on the command line, so it's just a matter of launching 10 copies from a simple shell script. If you look around it's fairly likely that someone has already done this. A quick Google turns up this promising-looking option: http://turbojet.sourceforge.net/

I would guess that hardware wise this will cost you ~$600 to build, assuming you buy everything new. Get an inexpensive mobo with 6 SATA (e.g. Intel's B43 based option), cheapest CPU you can find, a couple gigs of cheap RAM, a big case with tons of 5.25" bays and an inexpensive PSU, but make sure you get a decent 12V rail on it. Add a random hard drive to boot from and a couple 2 or 4 port PCI/PCIe Silicon Image based SATA controllers and you should be golden. For a couple hundred bucks I'm not sure it's worth the trouble unelss the problem interests you.

 

[kevineugenius]

The main thing we were considering price-wise is that a PC would cheaper to get into at first, though maybe not as fast/easy, but if something breaks on a CD duplicator, only the company that made it will have a clue how to repair it. If something in the PC breaks, it's a quick fix and won't cost much. I am pretty much 0 experience with Linux, I've installed it twice in the last 8 years but never really used it for anything other than testing some components really quick. Since I haven't done anything remotely like this, it would be... more comfortable to not use Linux.

 

[keenan]

I'm sure it could probably be done in Windows too. I know at least cdrdao has been ported. Just no idea how you'd go about it. Doing these kind of things on Windows tends to be considerably more involved and a pain in the ass.

 

[ToeNee]

I do this on a weekly base. But I do duplication on DVD instead, so burning CD should be very stemless as its not as heavy as DVDs. You can use Nero or Alcohol 120%, they both support multiple burners, burning simultaneously.


You can also build a duplication tower also, you just need a controller card.

 

[MrGuvernment]

Nero does it fine, at work i burn 2 DVD's at the same time for backups, just choose to burn to multiple recorders, both of mine are SATA drives.

I'm sure it could probably be done in Windows too. I know at least cdrdao has been ported. Just no idea how you'd go about it. Doing these kind of things on Windows tends to be considerably more involved and a pain in the ass.

Not really?

install nero, choose to burn and select the drives to use = done.

it is usually the other way around in that linux it is harder to do unless you know the OS inside and out.

 

[MrGuvernment]

ignore

 

[kevineugenius]

I do this on a weekly base. But I do duplication on DVD instead, so burning CD should be very stemless as its not as heavy as DVDs. You can use Nero or Alcohol 120%, they both support multiple burners, burning simultaneously.


You can also build a duplication tower also, you just need a controller card.

What controller card do you use, and how many do you burn at once (or do you happen to know the max for Nero or Alcohol; both user manuals and websites are devoid of info)? The cards on Newegg have an aweful lot of bad reviews, probably from people like me who don't know how to use them... but I'd rather get something fairly stable to start with.

 

[TechHead]

PS - there IS a CD burning section. Subforum of the Data Storage forum

 

[ourfpshero]

i have burned 2 cd's at once with nero, maybe more is possible

 

[ToeNee]

What controller card do you use, and how many do you burn at once (or do you happen to know the max for Nero or Alcohol; both user manuals and websites are devoid of info)? The cards on Newegg have an aweful lot of bad reviews, probably from people like me who don't know how to use them... but I'd rather get something fairly stable to start with.

I burn 5 DVD simultaneously on my desktop running x64 xp. I'm not exactly sure how many drive Nero or Alcohol 120 support. I have heard good things from Wytron and Acard DVD controllers. Just remember to burn slow, verify, and use high quality media like Taiyo Yuden.