typed:

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.

I used to have Plextor 8432, now my friend has it. It's about 3 years old
and still works like a charm. It's slow, but reliable.