TechWorks may best be known for its top quality RAM, but iMac users may know the company better for its excellent PowerUSB 4-Port Hub. Now, with the PowerCDR, TechWorks will be known as the company that finally brought an internal CDR solution to first-generation iMac users.
The PowerCDR uses a 4x 20x Sony mechanism with a standard ATAPI interface that offers full support for all of the features one would expect form a quality CDR drive, including all of the popular writing modes and methods such as HFS (Mac), ISO990 (PC), Audio CDs, and Video CDs.
Installation of the PowerCDR is a little bit tricky but if you've installed RAM in your iMac or feel comfortable poking around inside of it, it shouldn't be a problem. While the included instructions are fairly detailed, a couple steps were a little obscure and failure to make one small adjustment forced us to have to take the iMac apart once we were done to rectify the problem. To aid other iMac users with the installation process, we have also put together a visual installation guide at iMac2Day.
The PowerCDR blends nicely with the iMac and eject buttons in the six iMac colors are included so that you can match the PowerCDR with your iMac. Our unit came without the buttons but a quick call to Tech Support had a set being overnighted to us. TechWorks offers lifetime tech support on the PowerCDR, something that users who aren't too comfortable about installing the drive or creating CDs will appreciate, and their staff is very knowledgeable.
The PowerCDR comes with MacCDR 4.0 software. If you've never heard of it don't be surprised; it's a piece of Japanese software that's been translated into English. While the manual is fairly detailed, the software lacks the intuitiveness, ease of use, and a handful of features that are found in Adaptec's Toast, the de-facto standard for CD recording. If you're familiar with Toast you'll be longing for it after one session with MacCDR, if not for the features then for the fact that Toast doesn't have a handful of typos in its dialog boxes. Unfortunately, only Toast 4.0 supports the PowerCDR drive. TechWorks is working on bundling Toast but since the title was only recently released they have yet to work out an agreement with Adaptec.
The PowerCDR performed flawlessly in our evaluation. It took just over six minutes to copy a 600 MB CD onto the hard drive and 16:30 to burn it to a CD; times that are on par with the product's 4x 20x speed. Because it's internal and uses the ATAPI interface, the PowerCDR also didn't have any of the problems that many USB CD-RW drives, such as slower reading and recording speeds and sometimes unreliable recordings.
Still, opting for the internal PowerCDR over an external USB unit does have its downsides. For starters, the PowerCDR costs $355, whereas many USB recorders sell for under $300. You also lose the convenience of having 2 CD-ROM drives, meaning that CD to CD burning requires you to have enough space on your hard drive to copy the CD to your hard drive before burning, something becomes an even greater annoyance when trying to make audio CD mixes. Most USB CD-RW drives also come bundled with Toast, an application that on its own costs $80. Finally, USB CD-RW drives are just that--CD-RW--something that the PowerCDR isn't. While I've always questioned the usefulness of CD-RW, it's a feature that one expects on most CD recorders today.
The PowerCDR is an excellent piece of equipment whose performance is undermined by disappointing software. If you don't plan on making many CD to CD recordings and have a copy of Toast 4.0 in hand, the PowerCDR is an ideal solution.
On November 14, Techworks cut the price of the PowerCDR to $299.99, putting it more on par with the cost of external USB CD-RW drives.
