This is my experience with Plextor drives: I have installed FOUR model 716A drives in my system.

Within 18 months, ALL THREE DRIVES DIED.  The original 3, plus the factory replacement for one of the failed drives.

Besides this they never did perform as well as other drives I have owned, i.e., do not error correct well, have problems reading discs that other cheaper older drives read without problems-

In summary, PLEXTOR DRIVES SUCK.

I make between 5,000 and 10,000 CDs and DVDs each year- (BUT NOT ON THE PLEXTOR DRIVES), utilizing a number of consumer and professional programs such as Adobe Audition, Sony Vegas 6, DVD Architect, Pinnacle Studio, Steinberg Cubase, Adobe Photoshop, and many others.

I use Pioneer and Lite-On drives for this large number of duplications.

The Plextor drives have had very light use by comparison.

For duplication of CDs and DVDs I have two 7 drive towers, one utilize 8 Pioneer drives, and the other utilizing 8 Lite-On drives. I have duplicated thousands of CDs and DVDs on each of these towers without problem and with a minimum of maintenance.

My main PC is a Pentium 4 3.2 Hyperthreading Intel based system, and I have 3 drives installed in this machine for burning master CD or DVDs. All of these drives have had a very minimum amount of use since the majority of my CD and DVD writing is done in the towers.

Originally I installed Sony DVD-RWs in the PC, but 2 out of the three drives stopped working after a short period and after Sony replaced these drives under warranty, I sold them and bought and installed 3 identical Plextor 716A DVD-RW drives to replace them.

The Plextor's were compatible with my Sony software, and so I chose this model drive and based on rumour that Plextor made good drives.

It was a mistake. Again, in less than 15 months, 2 of the 3 Plextor drives have failed.

Bear in mind, these drives are used very infrequently.

Bear in mind, my Pioneer and Lite-On drives are constantly cranking out thousands of discs, without problem or failure.

I have also noticed that the Plextor drives do not read every disc as they should. They have difficulty ready discs that other cheaper, much older drives have no problem reading. Recently, the Plextor drives were totally incapable of reading a simple CD-ROM computer game disc-- which was readily read by an eight year old HP CD-ROM drive

Plextor replaced one drive under warranty, but refused to replace the second which was more than a year old (about 15 months).

A month after my request to get the second drive replace, the third one failed-- it no longer would write DVDs. I spent 8 hours troubleshooting-- DEAD DEAD DEAD.

I put in a Pioneer Drive, same cable-- no problem.

In my opinion, a drive costing $130 should certainly last well over a year, or even 15 months especially when it gets very light use.

I do not hesitate to say "DO NOT PURCHASE A PLEXTOR DRIVE" from my own experience, which is considerable regarding drives, discs, and software.