Revew: Que!Fire External Firewire CDRW

Product:		Que!Fire 12x/10x/32x External Firewire CDRW
Manufacturer:		QPS
Price:		$299.99 (approximate street price)
Review by:		Marc Zeedar

Available at the Applelinks Store

I used to own an external SCSI CDRW drive which I bought to use for backing up my data. I would periodically move the unit between my old PowerBook and my desktop Mac. While it worked, it was a pain. The computers had to be shut down to connect or disconnect the drive. SCSI IDs had to be set properly or the drive conflicted with my other SCSI devices. Worse, the drive was old and noisy, but I had to leave it on to be recognized during boot or I couldn't use it.

The result of that mess? I rarely used the CDRW, and even more rarely backed up the laptop.

Then came Firewire.

My PowerBook G4 doesn't have SCSI, so I was searching for a replacement Firewire CDRW drive. I picked up a Que!Fire 12x/10x/32x drive at Fry's Electronics. I could have bought a 16x, but I didn't feel the extra money (25% more) got me much. After all, I was used to a 4x writer -- 12x was a dream!

I wasn't familiar with the QPS brand name, but it looked like the best unit at the store (except for the more expensive 8x Sony drive), and I was in a buying mood. Besides, the specs sounded great: 12x write, 10x re-write, and 32x read. It included BurnProof technology, which should completely eliminate buffer underrun errors (where the drive doesn't get enough data during a burn and ruins the disc).

The only other feature I wanted was the ability to use the unit in bus-powered mode (no AC cable), but the reports I'd heard of drives that were bus-powered was that they couldn't burn at more than 4x without AC power anyway, so that wasn't that great of a loss.

When I got it home, I was instantly impressed. The drive came with a nice carrying case. It included all the peripherals I could want: Firewire cable, AC adaptor, Mac software (a basic version of Toast), even a couple pieces of sample media (one CDR disc and one CDRW disc). The case is custom-designed specifically for the drive (with pockets for all the cables and peripherals) and it was a delightful bonus, especially for me, as I planned to use the drive with my new PowerBook and might want to carry it on a trip.

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Setting up the drive for a first burn was a snap. I popped in the Roxio (formerly Adaptec) Toast CD and clicked the install button. While the Mac was rebooting, I plugged in the AC brick, and then connected the Firewire cable between the drive and the PowerBook. I flipped on the drive's power switch and launched Toast.

Toast indicated a CD writer was connected. I inserted a blank CDR disc (a cheap 8x disc I had), dragged one of my hard drive partitions to the Toast window, and told it to burn at 12x speed. In minutes it was verifying my copy and ejecting the disc, indicating a perfect burn. Very cool -- even my cheap 8x media worked at high speed!

While I didn't do any serious benchmarks, the drive is very fast: duplicating a small CD with about 100MB of data, even with verify afterwards, was faster than copying that much data to a Zip disk. I'm so used to reading a book or watching TV or something during a long burn, the quick process almost annoyed me with interruptions that it was already finished!

I tried unplugging the Firewire cable and Toast reported there was no drive connected. I plugged it back in, and Toast showed that it was ready to burn. Now that the Toast software was installed, I could connect the drive at any time!

Once I'd installed the Toast software on my desktop G4, I connected the drive to it. It worked perfectly, allowing me to hot swap the drive between the two Macs, exactly as I'd imagined.

Here I discovered something I really appreciated. While the Que!Fire comes with with the inevitable power brick, it's not at the end of the cable clogging up three plugs on your surge protector. The brick connects to a standard AC cable (included) of which I have several extras. So I was able to keep one cable near the PowerBook's location and one near the PowerMac and just move the drive and power brick between them (no crawling under the desk searching for an empty plug on the power strip).

I really can find no flaws with the drive. It worked as advertised, it's so quiet it's practically silent, and it was reasonably priced (though I abhor rebates, there is a $30 rebate on the drive, good through June). I find the limited version of Toast included to be a negative, but no drives include a full copy, and I'd recommend upgrading to Toast 5 Titanium anyway.

One caution: I've heard reports on DealMac forums that QPS has poor customer support, but I can't verify or deny that. For me, the drive worked perfectly, and I'm very happy with it. I'm sure I'll be using the drive a great deal for years to come. Five stars!

Available at the Applelinks Store

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