Hey all this is just a short and sweet solution/suggestion for those that want to speed up the entire back-up process.

Now mind you this is not a new concept at all just a collection of insights from the help i have received from dedicated Moderators and the extremely resourceful Members of the forum.

The easiest thing to do is get a 16x dvd-rom, set it to master, and enable dma on all drives.

--many prefer the lite-on 166s(black) or the Sony ddu1612(black).

--i personally purchased mine at www.newegg.com for $39 and $42, respectively including shipping (great service got it in 2 days).

--reasons to spend this $$:
it saves wear and tear on your expensive burner,
its faster,
you can rip and burn w/o having to be there(for both DXC and DXCX).

this simple and easy step will save you money in the long run, plus it will save you time(for me roughly 20-30 min per disk using +R).

if you want to ensure the most speed, although not much more, you will need to have a 4x burner, with the latest firmware updates and 4x media(which are expensive).

Having the latest firmware update for you particular burner could increase your burn speed on 1x disks to 2x. i think this is the case for sony's and pioneer's.

Although faster seems better, as many have fervently and repeatedly stated when it comes to burning video, dvds in particular, speed is not the premium, its quality.
so slower is better, 1x-2.4x, until 4x is better supported, that is;)

so in summation, having a 2 drive setup(rom and burner) is the simplest, most cost effective way to increase speed.

hope this helps answer some of your questions.

one very happy (newbie) dad,
ben

ps: sorry not as short as i would've liked it ;b

pps: if someone can move this to the main 321 problems and solution forum, it might do more good there. for some reason i could not start a new thread there as i had originally hoped. thanks

serious

A good post , Thanx & I moved it too.