Sanyo's BURN-proof technology looks set to revolutionise CD authoring. Unless a drive is BURN-proof, then it's effectively old technology. Both these drives performed flawlessly in our tests, and the benefit, compared with the tweaks needed to get older drives to copy properly, is pretty obvious. No disabling all background software, no unplugging network cables, no switching off screen savers, and no holding your breath while tip-toeing gently away after pressing the 'Burn' button. It's the way CD writing should be.

To summarise, the choice here is pretty simple. If you have, or want, a SCSI adapter then the Mirai is a great choice, otherwise the PlexWriter was slightly faster in our tests and runs on a stand IDE bus. Doubtless many more drives will be available over the coming months.