JUST a few years ago a CD burner would have cost an arm and a leg. These were the days when people carried around Word documents on their floppy disks and often lost their data due to the quality of the magnetic tape.

In the few years since then everyone has got a CD burner in their computers and nearly everyone also has a DVD burner. This week we highlight some of the better DVD burners out there which can reliably put your data on CDs or DVDs.

NEC DVD +/- RW burner AD-7543

AT 60 retail, you'd expect one of the more expensive models on the market to burn at a faster rate. While not a Ferrari in DVD recording terms, the slimline NEC still burns fast enough and is very stable when recording to CD, DVD or DVD Ram.

Like most other drives these days, the NEC allows recording using multisession, disc-at-once, track-at-once and sessionat-once technologies. CD burning tops out at 24-speed, DVD at 8-speed and DVD Ram at 5-speed. If you've used NEC before and like the brand, then stay with it, but shopping around might get you better value.

Price: 60 from Dabs. ie

LG GSA H42L SuperMulti - DVD +/- RW

A WELL-KNOWN worldwide brand, the LG proves value for money and is a very reliable burner. With CD writing speeds of 48-speed, music or data CDs are burned in seconds rather than minutes, and with DVD writing speeds of 18speed, it might actually be hard to find the DVD media that can take writing speeds like this.

Additionally rewrite speeds on the LG run at 8-speed.

The LG also comes equipped with labelling technology, allowing you to create your own labels for your DVDs and CDs, giving a professional touch. Well worth the investment for a basic DVD burner.

Price: 40 from Elara. ie Plextor

DVD +/- RW burner, PX-DB608AL

UNIQUE among DVD burners, the PX-DB608AL provides two DVD drives in the same space as one DVD drive. The advantages of this unit are quite clear. It allows you to watch a film or play music while also burning data to disc, or it will allow you to copy discs without having to go through the steps of first copying, then ejecting, then putting in blank media and then recording.

CD burning speed is slow at 24-speed compared to others in the market and this is the same for DVD recording at 8-speed, but the speeds are competitive and will mean differences of a few minutes when recording.

While more than double the price of a normal DVD burner, the convenience factor more than makes up for it and this might just be the perfect solution for a busy office that sends out a lot of media presentations or data to clients and other of"ces. Worth buying.

Price: 145 from Komplett. ie

Sony Blu-Ray burner BWU-100A

WE'LL be hearing more about Blu-Ray Discs in the next few months as they become more popular. With the ability to save 50GB of data on a disc instead of the present 4.7GB, these burners will become the standard in the next few years.

Until then they will remain at this very high price . . . more than hard disc-based terrabyte servers. The device also burns CDs at 24-speed, DVDs at 8-speed and Blu-Ray at 2-speed.

Blu-Ray blank media are still expensive to buy and hard to source. It might be worth waiting six months to see how the market reacts to this, when it is expected there will be more choice and better price but if you want to move a lot of data about now and in a small space (the size of a normal DVD) . . .and if you have very deep pockets . . . then this Blu-Ray is worth seriously considering.

Price: 800from Komplett. ie