Ricoh MP7080A CD-RW Drive - Product Information

Home Office Computing, July, 2000 by Wayne Kawamoto

HOC RATING 123456

THE FLOPPY DISK IS DEAD, AND THE FORMAT war between Zip and LS-120 drives has been upstaged by the boom in convenient, high-capacity CD-RW. If you're seeking a handy solution for data backup and presentation or marketing materials creation, Ricoh's MP7080A ($239; 877-742-6479, www.ricohdms.com) is a competitively priced internal unit that will suit your needs.

The MP7080A installed in minutes; all the cables and hardware are included. While the drive's jumpers aren't marked, the helpful instruction manual gives enough information. Once set up, the drive wrote data to CD-R and CD-RW discs at speeds close to its specified 8x (1.2MB per second) data-transfer rate. If you're in a hurry to install software or play CD-ROM games, however, our tests showed the Ricoh read data at rather less than its advertised 32x speed.

The included Adaptec software acts as your interface for backups and also lets you copy and save to CD-RW as if to a floppy.

All told, the MP7080A is a solid drive priced to move. But a 4x drive will save you some bucks with little lost in exchange.

RATINGS

HOME OFFICE COMPUTING rates products on a scale of 1 to 10--with few 9's or 10's--based on value, performance, innovation (medals go to rare standouts in these areas), ease of use, and suitability for home offices. The A and B symbols indicate pros and cons.

Rating: 6