http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=10&subid=951 10 drives, much of a muchness in specs and price. Is it such a mature technology that the drives are pretty much the same? Also..what are the differences between the 4 Optiarc drives? I'm after something that is relatively quiet in use, so I'll get the quietest one if there's any significant difference.
I chose mine simply by the way the bezel looked Seriously, you'd have trouble fitting a razor between the lot of them. Went for a Sony, black bezel and the tech logos like DVD, Compact Disk rewriteable, RW DVD+R DL are all black too, merely slightly raised in the black plastic. Button is a nice rectangular thing which looks better with the many straight lines of my case instead of a round button. AD-5240S does everything normal people use and more AD-7240S does all that plus writing to DVD-RAM AD-72401S does all the 7240S does and does Lightscribe I'm using the AD-7240S. For some reason OCUK has the AD-7240S and the AD-7241S at the same price so if lacking any good reason you might as well get the one with Lightscribe.
Optiarc AD-5240 series doesn't do DVD-RAM and AD-7240 does do DVD-RAM, AD-7241 does RAM and Lightscribe. Half and retail boxed, and half are oem
