CDR Tests - Page 1

- Procedure

We tested all five drives with latest version of Nero/CloneCD. We used various media for our tests: Mitsubishi Chemicals 74/80min 24x/32x certified, Mitsui 74min 24x certified, Prodisc 80min 32x certified, Taiyo Yuden 74/80min 24/32x certified, Ricoh 80min 24x certified and Mitsubishi Chemicals/LiteOn 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. Note that the ASUS drive doesn't support 20x writing speed. Lastly we had problems with the ASUS drive since it allowed 40x recording speed with ACER based media.

ASUS CRW4012A drive has 0.60 firmware revision installed. This caused several "coasters" when we used Mitsui 16x/24x media up to 40x writing speeds. The drive returns a "write error" and aboard writing producing a coaster. We assume that those problems will be fixed by the time the firmware reaches the 1.00 revision build:

- 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. All drives start writing at 20x, and the LiteOn drive shifts faster than both Plextor/ASUS drive at 24x. The Plextor drive shifts second at the 24x and the ASUS drive last. At the second jump, LiteOn again shifts faster to the 32x speed, than the rest two drives. Both Plextor and ASUS drives now have the exact same shift points/writing speeds. In the last jump, the ASUS drive shifts faster than the other two drives, LiteOn comes second and the Plextor third.

All drives have the same rotation speeds at the start. The LiteOn drive, as being the faster recorder, has the highest rotation speeds, producing more noise but allowing faster 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 ends the task at 304 (SmartBurn disabled). Cendyne Lighting III comes second and the ASUS CRW4012A third:

The faster recorder at the 20x writing speed comes again from LiteOn. The LTR-40125S needs only 250secs, while the PleXWriter drive comes second with 259secs.

LiteOn LTR-40125S continues to lead the race at the 24x writing speed. The second faster drive comes from Plextor and Cendyne Lighting III third with 231secs. ASUS CRW4012A comes last with 238sec.

LiteOn LTR-40125S offers the lowest recording times again at the 32x writing speed. It needs 193secs to end the task and the second faster drive comes from Plextor. Cendyne Lighting III comes third and ASUS CRW4012A last with 212secs.

At the maximum writing speed, LiteOn drive continues to lead the race. The drive ends the task at 3:09mins and currently is the fastest recorder around. Cendyne Lighting III comes second with 197sec and PleXWriter PX-W4012A third with 198sec. ASUS CRW4012A comes last with 201secs.

The following pictures show the writing times from Nero. Note that for the LiteOn drive there are two pics (one with Smart Burn enabled/disabled):