Installation of the CRW2100EZ is no harder than the installation of any CD ROM. The manual and quick install sheet came with very complete instructions. All I did was remove my Plextor 16/10/40A and replaced it with the Yamaha 16/10/40. You can install the Yamaha as a stand alone CD Writer or with your existing CD ROM drive. Since most people like to make backups of their CDs, the second option is the most common.
With drive hooked up and ready to go, I inserted a 700 CD-R and proceed to do my standard 16X burn test. Three minutes into the burn I ran into the hated buffer underrun and created a coaster. So much for Waste-Proof Write Strategy.
Yamaha claims the CRW2100EZ is able to record at 16X. This is only partly true. The drive starts recording CDs at 12X and doesn't kick into 16X mode till about 15 minute into the disk. After that, it's 16X all the way to the end. Yamaha also says the CRW2100EZ can do rewrites at 10X but, again, this too is misleading. The drive burns CD-RWs at 4X to 8X until it hits the outer edges of the disk, then it switches to 10X.
This is because of the drive's semi-CAV design, which is a combo of Constant Angular Velocity (CAV) and Constant Linear Velocity (CLV). Because CAV spins the disk at a constant speed, more data is written to the edge than the center. Once the drive writes up to a certain point on the disk it switches over to CLV to maintain its maximum burn speed.
This semi-CAV design is part of Yamaha's Waste-Proof Write Strategy. By using a huge 8 Meg buffer and modulating the write speed it's suppose to do away with buffer underruns. However it doesn't work very well. Nowhere near as good as Plextor's Burn Proof. The drive is also quite sensitive to vibration. A whack on the side of the case created a bad CD. Of course you shouldn't be whacking your case or running other programs when you're burning CDs.
The Yamaha drive works well when you don't have any programs running in the background and when you're not whacking your case (did I just say that?). Speed wise I was able to burn a full 700 Meg CD in a little over 5 minutes. That's just a bit slower than the Plextor 16/10/40A.
While the Yamaha may be behind the Plextor in performance and coaster free burning, it does offer a more complete software bundle and sells for a lower price. Those saving graces aren't enough to save me from the frustration of making those bad CDs however.
The Goods
Great software bundle
Full feature
Easy to install
The Bads
Waste Proof no match for Burn Proof
Sensitive to vibration
Rating: 6/10