CloneCD Reading Tests

- Procedure

We used CloneCD (v3.3.4.1) and 5 original CDs - Euro 2000 (SafeDisc 1), No One Lives For Ever (SafeDisc 2), Rally Masters (LaserLock 1), Desperados (LaserLock 2) and V-Rally 2 Expert (SecuROM 2) - in order to test the reading time of our DVD-ROMs. We also tested their reading performances with backups of the original CDs, since reading speeds vary between original and backup media. Note that both ASUS and Toshiba DVD-ROM support only hardware error correction. All test results in graphs are taken from the zero (0) value setting.

- Performance notes

CloneCD has default 3 reading re-tries when reading from Toshiba SD-M1612. If you leave the default settings, the drive is actually slower than ASUS E616. If you decide to reduce reading re-tries down to zero (0) there is the possibility to get additional bad sectors, as we saw from our tests. We post below the reading times with both modes:

As the tests results showed, in case of SafeDisc 1/2 CDs, you must lower the reading re-tries in the CloneCD software down to zero (0). In that case you almost have reduced the reading time by 50%. With LaserLock 1/2 CDs, the gain is much lower and it is recommended to leave the default setting (3). We also noticed that in some cases, when re-tries settled at zero (0), the Toshiba drive reported more bad sectors than the existing.

- PSX Media

ASUS E616 has the lower reading time with only 58secs. BTC 316B comes second with 51secs and Toshiba SD-M1612 third with 52secs. LiteOn LTD-163 comes last with 315secs:

- SafeDisc 1/2 results

Toshiba SD-M1612 is the faster reader with SafeDisc 1/2 CDs. The drive needs 2:23mins to rip the disc. ASUS E616 performance is not bad, but it is almost 50% slower than the Toshiba drive. The rest of the drives have a very low performance compared to those two drives.

In the SafeDisc 2 test disc, the Toshiba drive has a lower reading performance. The ASUS drive has also lowered its reading speed.

- LaserLock 1/2 results

ASUS E616 is very fast with LaserLock 1 protected CDs. Toshiba SD-M1612 stays in the third place with the original CD. However with the backup disc, the Toshiba drive gets the first position.

In the LaserLock 2 test, the results are the same as with LaserLock 1. ASUS E616 holds the first place with the original CD and Toshiba SD-M1612 gets the first place with the backup disc.

- SecuROM 2 results

All drives can read SubChannel data from both Data and Audio tracks, except from Pioneer DVD106, which doesn't support reading of 96 bytes of SubChannel data (CD+G). The faster drive is LiteOn and ASUS E616 gets the second position. Toshiba SD-M1612 gets the third place.