Plextor's "SATA" burners - what a crock!

NoxTek

NoxTek

The Geek Redneck
Joined
May 27, 2002
Messages
9,300
So I was building a PC for a client and Fry's happened to have the 12X Plextor SATA drives for $69.99 with a $20 rebate making them $49.99. So we decided this would be cool since he could then have all his drives be SATA and not have a big ol' ribbon cable anywhere in the mix.

So upon opening the package and checking the drive out, I notice that the back panel of the drive is sort of suspiciously held on with 2 screws. Since there were no warranty seals preventing removal of this panel, I figured it was an invite to check things out. So out the screws came and what do you know? It's not a true SATA drive at all... it's a plain old IDE drive with a SATA bridge hurriedly slapped onto the PATA connector at the rear of the drive. Meh!

And all that noise everyone made about Plextor being the first to produce SATA DVD recorders. Poppycock! Shenannigans and tom foolery!

Anyway this ended up being a good thing, since I found out during the build that the stock drive wouldn't work in anything but PIO mode on the Abit KV8 Pro's VIA powered SATA controller. It's apparently a known compatability issue that neither Plextor or VIA see fit to resolve. (and it's probably Marvel's damn fault for the crappy bridge chip anyway). I ended up pulling the little SATA bridge PCB off of the rear of the drive (removing it from the PATA connector and power connector) and it works just fine as a normal 12X Plextor PATA drive. Because that's what it is. :p

I've got some pictures if anyone happens to be curious. :)
 
Here ya go :)

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By the way, I'm very curious to know if this little bridge/converter will work on any IDE drive. So tomorrow I'm going to test it on:

My NEC 3520A (16x DL PATA DVD)
My old Lite-On 851S (8x SL PATA DVD)
An old Quantum Fireball 40GB PATA EIDE (only PATA drive I have handy at the moment)
 
I'd be pissed. Good work detective....I'm putting you in for a promotion. If i pay for a SATA drive, thats exactly what I want! Not a gaff-drive.
 
It really isn't a big deal because the drive can't send data anywhere near 150mbps. It would be cool if you could buy those adapters. Does anyone know if you can? I could use about 3 of those. :D

[edit] Found one on newegg. That should help out quite a bit.
 
I've been having problems with this drive, and I dunno if this is why. (see my thread below).

I have a mobo (Asus a8v-deluxe) that is prob not up to date with SATA atapi devices, so my pro - m-audio card plas back chooppy n stuff (audio-wise). A really annoying problem, and I dunno what to do to solv it:

buy a new drive (ide, which seems pointless becaus enow my sata is IDE)

buy a new sound card...others work fine (tested this with santa cruz)

buy new mobo -- for chipset compatibility
 
Blue Falcon said:
So I was building a PC for a client and Fry's happened to have the 12X Plextor SATA drives for $69.99 with a $20 rebate making them $49.99. So we decided this would be cool since he could then have all his drives be SATA and not have a big ol' ribbon cable anywhere in the mix.

So upon opening the package and checking the drive out, I notice that the back panel of the drive is sort of suspiciously held on with 2 screws. Since there were no warranty seals preventing removal of this panel, I figured it was an invite to check things out. So out the screws came and what do you know? It's not a true SATA drive at all... it's a plain old IDE drive with a SATA bridge hurriedly slapped onto the PATA connector at the rear of the drive. Meh!

And all that noise everyone made about Plextor being the first to produce SATA DVD recorders. Poppycock! Shenannigans and tom foolery!

Anyway this ended up being a good thing, since I found out during the build that the stock drive wouldn't work in anything but PIO mode on the Abit KV8 Pro's VIA powered SATA controller. It's apparently a known compatability issue that neither Plextor or VIA see fit to resolve. (and it's probably Marvel's damn fault for the crappy bridge chip anyway). I ended up pulling the little SATA bridge PCB off of the rear of the drive (removing it from the PATA connector and power connector) and it works just fine as a normal 12X Plextor PATA drive. Because that's what it is. :p

I've got some pictures if anyone happens to be curious. :)
Click to expand...


Thats because you got the cheap drive. The dual layer drive has a native SATA solution. I have both, and even though both can do 16X single layer, your drive is slower than the dual layer.

I guess you get what you pay for.
 
The 712 and 716 are the same, IIRC. Go to Plextor's SATA compatibility list before buying!
 
TechHead said:
The 712 and 716 are the same, IIRC.
Click to expand...

Nope, they are quite different. The 712 is a single layer DVD+/-RW drive and is not native SATA, as the OP pointed out. The 716 is a dual layer DVD+/-RW drive that is native SATA. Plus the 716 costs about twice as much as the 712. Here is a picture of my 716 drive with the bottom off. Nice single SATA board. No ugly IDE hiding anywhere.


716.jpg


Also this drive is much shorter than the 712. It fits much better in my SFF PC.

I love how you can take the bottom off without breaking the warranty void sticker. :D
 
I could swear I've seen a 716SA that's just like the 712SA with the little slap-on board and everything. But yours looks a lot nicer anyway. And yeah, it's shorter by several centimetres since it doesn't have that darn SATA converter board stuck up it's ass. :D

I still don't think it's native serial ATA though. That Marvell 88SA8040 chip is a dead giveaway. All of the information I can find on the net about it says it's a SATA - PATA bridge solution and not an actual SATA controller.

Still at least they appear to be moving in the right direction. I still feel let down as when the 712SA was first released they made a big stink about being the only manufacturer to release real SATA optical drives. :p

Oh and apparently you can buy these exact same converter boards (I dunno if that's what the guy earlier in this thread was talking about).

http://www.mpl.be/productinfo/technicalsheet.aspx?prd=137971
 
Blue Falcon said:
I still don't think it's native serial ATA though. That Marvell 88SA8040 chip is a dead giveaway. All of the information I can find on the net about it says it's a SATA - PATA bridge solution and not an actual SATA controller.
Click to expand...

I just peeled off the bottom and took the picture, I never thought to look at the chips!! I bet they didn't want to pay to upgrade the main controller chip this time around, since PATA can still keep up with current write speeds. At least this drive feels more SATA like, the 712 just feels like the SATA was just thrown on at the last minute.

We'll probably have to wait until blu-ray/HD-DVD comes out to actually get a native SATA drive. Hopefully this will also solve a lot of the compatability issues.
 
brom42 said:
I just peeled off the bottom and took the picture, I never thought to look at the chips!! I bet they didn't want to pay to upgrade the main controller chip this time around, since PATA can still keep up with current write speeds. At least this drive feels more SATA like, the 712 just feels like the SATA was just thrown on at the last minute.
Click to expand...

TOTALLY agree on that. With the 716 I guess they could be bothered enough to design an actual different PCB and integrate the SATA bridge chip onboard.

I am now positive that the 716SA is indeed a PATA drive with an integrated PATA -> SATA bridge. I borrowed a friend's 716A and it's nearly identical to your PCB except for the rear near where the SATA connector is and the Marvell bridge chip is.

Oh and I tried the bridge board on my personal NEC 3520A PATA DVD recorder, and my DFI Lanparty nForce3 250gb wouldn't recognize it (on either SATA controller). I'm still going to try a HDD or two, and maybe another Lite-ON. I'm curious like that. :D
 
brom42 said:
Nope, they are quite different. The 712 is a single layer DVD+/-RW drive and is not native SATA, as the OP pointed out. The 716 is a dual layer DVD+/-RW drive that is native SATA. Plus the 716 costs about twice as much as the 712. Here is a picture of my 716 drive with the bottom off. Nice single SATA board. No ugly IDE hiding anywhere.


716.jpg


Also this drive is much shorter than the 712. It fits much better in my SFF PC.

I love how you can take the bottom off without breaking the warranty void sticker. :D
Click to expand...
I meant the SATA implementation. Both have a Marvell PATA -> SATA converter, IIRC.
 
Using the bridge chip is kind of annoying but I doubt it would have any significant affect on performance. The drives are so far from using the full potential of a SATA connection and since it's cheaper to make the PATA connetor and then just bridge it somehow I don't see why not. Personally I'd say the benefit is more of being able to have the optical drives in the system without having to use the normal ribbon cables.

I'd like to see a company release a mobo with no PS/2 ports on the back, no serial ports, printer or other legacy crap and get rid of the PATA controller. Just give me a crapload of USB ports, PCI Express, and 8x SATA ports with possibly some RAID chip on the mobo to speed up drive operations a bit. Maybe it's own little memory buffer as well.
 
Anarchist4000 said:
Using the bridge chip is kind of annoying but I doubt it would have any significant affect on performance. The drives are so far from using the full potential of a SATA connection and since it's cheaper to make the PATA connetor and then just bridge it somehow I don't see why not. Personally I'd say the benefit is more of being able to have the optical drives in the system without having to use the normal ribbon cables.

I'd like to see a company release a mobo with no PS/2 ports on the back, no serial ports, printer or other legacy crap and get rid of the PATA controller. Just give me a crapload of USB ports, PCI Express, and 8x SATA ports with possibly some RAID chip on the mobo to speed up drive operations a bit. Maybe it's own little memory buffer as well.
Click to expand...


Maybe a MoBo manufacturer will go "modular". Think of the slot where the Karajan module goes on the DFI boards. Why couldn't different modules be used in that space. That way, you'd buy the main board, and then the modules that you need, instead of having PS2, audio, serial, etc. I'm sure that the space savings would allow additional SATA ports onboard, or an extra USB controller chip.
 
thats cool! you can buy them for customers and scrounge the bridge part to use on any drive you like. they dont loose anything except the headache of using SATA optical drive :)

and u gain a handy thingy
 
very nice

i had read about a year ago that the ICH5? bride of something can not handle removable media - ie DVD /cd drives with SATA or something - but they were supposed to fix that in recent ICH6 chipsets or something....
 
lol... I remember when I thought those Plextor SATA drives were the "new" thing in optical drives. :p
 
Blue Falcon said:
TOTALLY agree on that. With the 716 I guess they could be bothered enough to design an actual different PCB and integrate the SATA bridge chip onboard.

I am now positive that the 716SA is indeed a PATA drive with an integrated PATA -> SATA bridge. I borrowed a friend's 716A and it's nearly identical to your PCB except for the rear near where the SATA connector is and the Marvell bridge chip is.

Oh and I tried the bridge board on my personal NEC 3520A PATA DVD recorder, and my DFI Lanparty nForce3 250gb wouldn't recognize it (on either SATA controller). I'm still going to try a HDD or two, and maybe another Lite-ON. I'm curious like that. :D
Click to expand...


hi2u nox! I was thinking. WTF? Ive seen this thread before, then I was like THAT FUCKER IS USING NOX's PICS! then a DUH! :D
 
do not bother with a sata -> pata converter. i have had two of them die on me. both used the damn marvel chip on them too. they also both died within a month of each other (use time).
 
Are there any other SATA burners? I'm trying to make my computer IDE free, but this and the MSI drive are the only drives I've found for SATA.

So anything else?
 
S1nF1xx said:
It really isn't a big deal because the drive can't send data anywhere near 150mbps. It would be cool if you could buy those adapters. Does anyone know if you can? I could use about 3 of those. :D

[edit] Found one on newegg. That should help out quite a bit.
Click to expand...

It's not the data rate its the connector. since on newer boards the IDE connectors are going the way of the dodo. down to one now and it makes the drive a little future proof at least until VHS or Betamax....i mean HD-DVD or BD are all the rage. maybe 1 or 2 M/B upgrades.
 
serbiaNem said:
Are there any other SATA burners? I'm trying to make my computer IDE free, but this and the MSI drive are the only drives I've found for SATA.

So anything else?
Click to expand...

I havent seen anything else but the plextors and the MSI ones.
 
Is this still a problem?

Because I just purchased the damn 716 SA :*(

Had I read this thread...I would have not purchased the damn thing and just gone IDE for bucks less :mad:

Darn it!
 
:eek:
Wow......dead thread revival!
No problems what-so-ever with mine.
Click to expand...
The original issue wasnt "I'm having problems with this drive", it was " I bought a drive that was supposed to be true SATA, and this thing is a PATA with a bridge to SATA"!
 
What a sham! SATA seems to be yet another solution searching for a problem. Since about the millenium everyone who is anyone has used rounded IDE cables. Ontop of that the supposed SATA optical drives actually have degraded performance because they don't have a native SATA chipset.

The higher transfer rates also must be some kind of joke. Since when has any drive been able to push over 66 Mb/s? To saturate even an ATA 133 bus you would need at least a 15,000 RPM drive.

BTW: There's no need to get SATA so you can be future proof. IDE connectors aren't going away for at least the next six years unless you specifically purchase a board without IDE. Even then adding in a cheap $5 PATA card would be easy as pie.
 
im loving my 716SA. Best drive ive ever used. IMO, Plextor still makes the best quality burners on the market...
 
WHAT THE FUCK!!!

I bought this drive in August when I built my new rig in sig and had so much f'ing hell with it trying to get it to work! I called up Plextor and they told me that the nForce drivers had a compatibility problem with the drive and I needed to use the windows default. Now the problem has been fixed but at the time I was having issues I thought it was total horse shit!

The drive has been running good but to see them using that kind of SATA controller pisses me off because its not a true SATA drive!

Anyone wanna join up in a class action lawsuit? :D
 
Well - i would read all of their fine print first

i think it is a grey area

Is it a SATA optical drive - Yes, it has an SATA connector
Is it a TRUE SATA drive - no - it uses an adapter to make it SATA....

So it is really an IDE burner with an SATA adapter....
 
dR.Jester said:
WHAT THE FUCK!!!

I bought this drive in August when I built my new rig in sig and had so much f'ing hell with it trying to get it to work! I called up Plextor and they told me that the nForce drivers had a compatibility problem with the drive and I needed to use the windows default. Now the problem has been fixed but at the time I was having issues I thought it was total horse shit!

The drive has been running good but to see them using that kind of SATA controller pisses me off because its not a true SATA drive!

Anyone wanna join up in a class action lawsuit? :D
Click to expand...
Just make sure you file it against NV. Plextor's gone way down hill from thier good days IMHO, but this isn't thier fault. It's well known that the NV IDE drivers suck ass & fubar burners on a regular basis.
 
Here is my question -

I plan to build a PC using the Intel i975X chipset around April. The last handful of Intel chipsets have the ability to disable all IDE resources and only use SATA (via the BIOS). Furthermore, the i865 (Conroe's chipset) is supposed to be Intel's first desktop chipset to eliminate IDE all together!

So....If I purchase a SATA HDD and a Plextor "psuedo-SATA" drive, will the optical drive still work if I disable all IDE resources???? Or, what if I wait for the i865 chipset...it wont even have IDE! Will it work with that?

Forgive me for misunderstanding, but did you guys prove that the newer 716SA is, or is not native SATA???
 
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