I have owned about eight CD/DVD burners in my life

[Orrex]

Not one of them has ever worked reliably or consistently, and all but the current one stopped working altogether for no apparent reason sometime during the service life of the device. They usually read the disc just fine, but try to write to one? Forget it!

Is there such a thing as an actual, functional CD/DVD writer? I'm more likely to believe in the Easter Bunny or an honest Republican.

[begin_within]

1. Well, the one in my eMac has worked for 4 years,

but I don't burn discs with it all that often. Mostly I use a LaCie d2+-RW DVD burner, attached to my old iMac and I guess I've burned about 1,000 DVDs with it and it still works. :shrug:

[leeroysphitz]

2. My pc has an all in one DVD +_ r/rw burner and a CD burner

They are both 5 years old and work fine with very regular use.(KNOCK ON WOOD)
It may not satisfy as an answer but you may have just had some bad luck so far hardware wise. Who knows?

[ghostsofgiants]

3. I've had two in the past decade. Both were very reliable, but the first one was an external USB...

So it was slow as balls. The second one I got about four years ago. LiteOn dual layer. Still works great.

[hobbit709]

4. What kind have you been using?

I have several different ones, NEC, Samsung, Lite-On, LG. I've burnt at least a couple of hundred CD/DVD on each one and they're still working. I usually buy what's on sale at newegg.com and haven't had any problems.