I was wondering what sort of life expectancy one can reasonable expect
from an ide cd burner. I am on my second cd burner, a Mitsumi 40-24-48
burner. After 6 months and perhaps 200 cd's burned, it is failing. I can
only burn smaller iso's (under 500mb) as anything bigger will cause an
error. It also wont read files beyond a certain point. My first cd burner
(a Yamaha 8-4-24) developed the same problem but it seemed to go away
after a while. This problem appears to be mechanical and appeared after
being left idle several months. Eventually, the problem went away
(something loosened up in the drive?). With the Mitsumi, I have had it in
constant use (not necessarily daily) and never had an extended period of
non-use.

After perhaps 400 cd's burned, the Yamaha burner was toast, no longer even
recognized by the controller. I must say the Mitsumi is a major
disappointment, but even the Yamaha seems like it should have had a longer
life.