Most computers today already comes with a disc burner but there are still some notebook users who owns subnotebooks, netbooks and ultraportable laptops that have no optical drive onboard. It could be troublesome if you need to backup files to a CD or DVD because you will first need to copy the files to a shared folder on another computer, and burn it from there. To make things easier, Paragon Net Burner is a great solution that uses iSCSI technology to share the disc burner to allow the client to work as if a physical optical drive is connected to it.
Although I currently haven no use for Net Burner, I still think that this is an interesting software that is able to help user save money without purchasing additional optical drives when they already have one on one of their computer. Paragon Net Burner is free and the installer is less than 3MB in size.
At one of the installation step that ask you to select which components should be installed. You can choose if you want to install the client installation, server installation or full installation which contains both of the modules. The server installation is for the computer that is physically attached to the disc burner while the client is without a disc burner. It is best to avoid using full installation because there is no point installing the server services on a client computer. You will need to unblock port 9260, 9261 and 9262 in firewall to allow communication between client and server side of Net Burner.
There is nothing that needs to be done on the server side. As for the client, after installation, launch Net Burner from the notification area and it will automatically search for available shared disc burners. If nothing found, the built-in Windows Firewall could be blocking the program. Disabling Windows Firewall solves the problem.
The disc burner drive mounted on the client will act as if there is a physical burner connected to it. Windows Explorer shows an additional drive letter for the burner and even Device Manager lists a SCSI CdRom Device.
To burn a disc, you will still need to insert an empty disc to the server except you can instantly start burning from your computer without sharing the files to burn and copying it over to the server for burning. The client computer can also read the disc when a disc is inserted to the burner.
During testing Paragon Net Burner, I found a limitation and a bug. The limitation is when the DVD drive on the server is mounted to a client, the server won’t be able to read the disc locally. If you try to access the disc locally on the server, an error window will popup saying “DVD RW Drive is currently in use. Save any open files on this disc, and then close the files or programs using the files before ejecting the disc”.
As for the bug, it doesn’t seem to work on more than 1 client. When I connect two clients to the server, both clients will hang at the same time for a few seconds quite frequently. When I unmount the drive on one of the client, the other client works perfectly. I am not sure if Net Burner isn’t suppose to work on Windows 7 because the system requirements webpage only mentioned that it supports XP, Vista and Server 2003.
To download Paragon Net Burner, you will have to go through a one time registration. The download link will be sent to your email together with a Product Key and Serial Number. Weirdly there is no need to use the Product Key and Serial Number at all.