My trusty Plextor 12x10x32 just gave up the ghost after burning probably 500 discs. Looking for a replacement. The new drives are advertising 40x or even 48x write speeds which seems insane.

Anyone have experience with the Lite-On or Yamaha burners? Plextor is great but expensive.

Lite-On 40x burners are insanely good for the price. Like $60 and they burn just as well as drives costing twice as much. Highly recommended.

I'd get a combo drive that does CD-RW and DVD-ROM. Having both in one saves a drive bay and the DVD-ROM is handy for watching movies.