CDR Tests - Page 1

- Procedure

We tested the drive with latest version of Nero/CloneCD. We used various media for our tests: Mitsubishi Chemicals 74/80min 24x/32x certified, Mitsui 74min 16x/24x/40x certified, Prodisc 80min 32x certified, Taiyo Yuden 74/80min 24x/32x certified, Ricoh 80min 24x/32x certified and Mitsubishi Chemicals/Ricoh HS-RW media. We burned CDs at almost all recording speeds from 16x up to 40x using the SAME amount of data for all drives. The posted recording times are the best we had from our test results. Using other media can increase the final burning time.

The best results came only with the Mitsubishi Chemical 80min 32x and Hitachi-Maxell 80min 40x certified media. In case you use other media and even select 40x speed, they will be written either at 32x speed or at the 16x-40x writing strategy. For the HS-RW tests, the drive supports 12x with the Ricoh media. The bulked HS-RW media can only be written up to 10x. The TEAC drive lowers its maximum recording speed, when low quality media is inserted down to 32x or 24x:

- Comparison

Before starting the recording tests, let's see how the drives are compared in the writing/rotation speeds:

The above chart displays the different approaches towards 40x Zone-CLV recording speeds between Plextor, ASUS, LiteOn and TEAC. The TEAC drive start writing at 20x as the rest of the recorders and shifts at 6mins to 24x. The drive lowers less its recording speed at this point and at the next zones shifts earlier to the 32x and to 40x speeds. This makes it the faster recorder around. Again we must note that this performance will be accomplished with specific media.

The TEAC drive has the highest rotation speed that never exceeds the 10.000rpm. Higher rotation speeds means more noise and higher recording speeds.

- 74min CD-R Tests

We created a "DataCD" job with data slightly more than 74mins (74:03:65). We burned the same job with all five tested drives. The faster drive at the 16x writing test comes from LiteOn. The drive finished the task in 304 sec (SmartBurn disabled). TEAC CD-W540E needs four more seconds to finish (308sec), ASUS CRW4012A comes third and PleXWriter PX-W4012A last with 319secs:

The faster recorder at the 20x writing speed comes again from LiteOn. The LTR-40125S needs 250secs and CD-W540E six more second to end the task:

At the 24x writing speed, the TEAC drive comes second with 222secs. LiteOn LTR-40125S is faster by two seconds:

The time difference has been lowered at the 32x writing speed. The TEAC drive is one second slower than the LiteOn drive, a result which however could change with different media:

At the maximum writing speed, TEAC CD-W540E takes the first place. The drive ends the task at 3:05mins and gets the title of the fastest recorder around. LiteOn LTR-40125S comes second with 188secs, PleXWriter PX-W4012A third with 198sec and ASUS CRW4012A last with 201secs. Note that with current firmware, 40x speed is supported only for two media types so with most media recording performance would be lower:

The following picture comes from a Taiyo Yuden 32x certified media burned at the 40x speed. Even if the 40x speed is selectable, the final recording time is much higher than we should expect. The media was actually burned at 32x speed, as the second picture confirms.

The third picture comes from Mitsubishi Chemical 32x-40x certified media. With Hitachi-Maxell media, we had one-two seconds higher recording time.