Last time I ripped a album it took about 6-7 minutes in paranioa mode. It takes less in 'normal' mode. I always use the paranoia mode, even with the plextors, to prevent the possibility of having to rip twice. Others don't. If you don't, then the plextors are almost a requirement, due to their awesome DAE capabilities. You are much more likely to get a good rip with the Plextor drives.

RE: cdwriters... I THOUGHT that Plextor made a couple of cdrom readers still.... But it seems they are a bit harder to find. The key is the company. It appears that a significant portion of the CD spec is 'optional' for implementation. Well, the functions have to be implemented, but apparently the reader is allowed to just return 0 instead of valid data. Most cdrom readers do crap like this. They implement just enough to make it work, and not much else. Plextor has a very good history of implementing the spec, including the 'optional' parts. It's those optional parts that make them better at the DAE than just about anyone else, as most of the options are in the DAE and error correction functions. Remember, until recently, Ripping wasn't that big of thing, and it certainly wasn't "primetime".