CD Replication

Mike J

I'll be doing a project in a couple of months that in the end will need to produce about 750 CDs. I've done a little research online and it seems CD replication for that volume will be the cheapest. Question - does anyone have any experience with any CD replication companies that they can vouch for?

Glort

I had to do about that many a few years ago.
I just got an old used PC and put 11 Burners in it with the help of a couple of SATA cards to give me the extra ports I needed. Didn't take all that long at all to do really especially when I could have the disks burning while I was working on other things.
It's best to get burners that are all the exact same make and model. I bought the ones I got brand new for $21 ea so it wasn't a big expense at all. I also got a reasonably high powered power supply but I don't think I actually needed it, the Burners don't pull all that much more.

You can get stand alone controller cards which don't need a HDD in the machine and are probably a couple of Hundred bux or just load an OS and use them like a PC with a heap of Drives. I networked mine so I could have the master disk ( which was easier) in one machine then use the full 11 drives in the burning machine. It all worked real well and the only problems I had were all operator error ones.

This is the Controller cards:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Athena-SATA-CD-DVD-Blu-Ray-Duplicator-Controller-card-1-11-multi-burner-cables-/221089359820?pt=US_CD_DVD_Blu_Ray_Duplicators&hash=item3379f3e7cc&_uhb=1#ht_1163wt_903

The duplication companies here were far from cheap and with a bit of effort, I literally kept thousands on my bottom line for the gig.

I have since broken that machine up and used the drives in a heap of other computers but there is a gig I do every year that's getting bigger where I need to burn onsite. It's taking longer with the growing number of attendees just burning them on 3 laptops so last year I told the clients they might have to look at springing for a Duplicator setup to speed the job up and they were quite agreeable. Looks like I'll be building another machine before too long. This time I'll go for another 11 slot machine only I'll put a controller card in and get a proper case instead of cutting one up and having 2 Drives Duct taped to the Top of the thing.

There are plenty of Cases now made for this purpose with a heap of slots for the drives and the power supplies with all the connectors you need instead of having to buy adaptors like I did. they also have plenty of fans as the burners do get hot after a few runs.

You can also buy pre made duplicators. Might be worth having a look on flea bay if you don't want to build one. You can save the money on duplication fees and then just sell the thing and get your money back on it when you are done. You can daisy chain the ones with the better controllers so it's easy to just have multiple units and you can burn 50 or more disks at a time. The duplication companies have this exact same thing.

Mike J

Glort wrote: »

I had to do about that many a few years ago.
I just got an old used PC and put 11 Burners in it with the help of a couple of SATA cards to give me the extra ports I needed. Didn't take all that long at all to do really especially when I could have the disks burning while I was working on other things.
It's best to get burners that are all the exact same make and model. I bought the ones I got brand new for $21 ea so it wasn't a big expense at all. I also got a reasonably high powered power supply but I don't think I actually needed it, the Burners don't pull all that much more.

You can get stand alone controller cards which don't need a HDD in the machine and are probably a couple of Hundred bux or just load an OS and use them like a PC with a heap of Drives. I networked mine so I could have the master disk ( which was easier) in one machine then use the full 11 drives in the burning machine. It all worked real well and the only problems I had were all operator error ones.

This is the Controller cards:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Athena-SATA-CD-DVD-Blu-Ray-Duplicator-Controller-card-1-11-multi-burner-cables-/221089359820?pt=US_CD_DVD_Blu_Ray_Duplicators&hash=item3379f3e7cc&_uhb=1#ht_1163wt_903

The duplication companies here were far from cheap and with a bit of effort, I literally kept thousands on my bottom line for the gig.

I have since broken that machine up and used the drives in a heap of other computers but there is a gig I do every year that's getting bigger where I need to burn onsite. It's taking longer with the growing number of attendees just burning them on 3 laptops so last year I told the clients they might have to look at springing for a Duplicator setup to speed the job up and they were quite agreeable. Looks like I'll be building another machine before too long. This time I'll go for another 11 slot machine only I'll put a controller card in and get a proper case instead of cutting one up and having 2 Drives Duct taped to the Top of the thing.

There are plenty of Cases now made for this purpose with a heap of slots for the drives and the power supplies with all the connectors you need instead of having to buy adaptors like I did. they also have plenty of fans as the burners do get hot after a few runs.

You can also buy pre made duplicators. Might be worth having a look on flea bay if you don't want to build one. You can save the money on duplication fees and then just sell the thing and get your money back on it when you are done. You can daisy chain the ones with the better controllers so it's easy to just have multiple units and you can burn 50 or more disks at a time. The duplication companies have this exact same thing.

Thanks for the advice though I'm not interested in building a machine or buying a machine for this. I've seen bulk replication prices of around $0.50 a copy so doing 750 disks won't cost that much. There is a big difference in the cost of duplication vs replication.

I'm really looking for recommendations of replication companies anyone has done business with. Anybody work with a good company they would trust for another job?

tebogan

I have used a company in the past called Disk Makers ( http://www.discmakers.com/ ). They have always done a great job for me. The services vary, though not cheap as $ .50 they are worth it.

johng

Also - check your local fedex/kinkos. I know they do duplication. Probably won't be the cheapest though - but at least you know you can trust them.