- CD Format

For our CD transfer rate tests, we used the Nero CD-Speed utility and a set of Pressed CDs. Lets take a look at how the drive performed as compared with the other two external drives.

All the tested drives support 48X CD reading speed, so there's no great difference between them, although the LiteON produced slightly faster speeds, reaching 50X maximum reading speed.

With USRW media, again there's no great difference in speed between the drives except for the LiteOn.

- AudioCD

With AudioCDs, the Plextor PX-760A supports 40X DAE producing an average extraction speed of 31.55X, while the LiteOn and BenQ support 48X reading speed. All drives except for the NEC ND-4550A reported perfect DAE quality scores.

- 90mins Audio disc

- 99mins Audio disc

The PX-760A can neither read 90 or 99 min audio discs. :-(

- DVD Format

Now let's have a look at how the drive performs with DVD media. This time, a set of DVD media was used, both SL and DL.

Similar performance from all tested drives, since they all support 16X DVD reading speed.

The two layers of a PTP DVD-ROM disc are read sequentially with the drive starting reading from the inner part of the disc, which is the beginning of each layer, progressing towards its outer range. With the exception of the LiteOn drive, which supports a lower reading speed with DL media, the remaining drives reached 12X maximum.

The first layer of an OTP dual layer DVD-ROM is read exactly the same way as the first layer of the PTP disc we tested previously, the main difference being the reading strategy of the second layer on the disc. The beginning of the second layer is located in the outer part of the disc, so the drive starts reading from the outer tracks towards the inner part of the disc. Here too, the LiteOn drive supports a lower reading speed so it didn't reach 12X as did the the other drives. In general, the Plextor PX-760A had the most consistent speeds with DVD-ROM media.

With DVD±R media, the Plextor and LiteOn drives support the same speed, reporting an average reading speed of 9X with all formats, while the BenQ and NEC drives managed the highest speeds with all four media.

If you keep the eject button pressed for three seconds without inserting a disc, the riplock feature is deactivated and the ripping speed of the drive increases from 2.1X to 12.1X (maximum speed).

-Appendix

Nero CD-DVD Speed Graphs

CD Pressed / US-RW / AudioCD

DVD Pressed SL / DVD Pressed DL PTP / DVD Pressed DL OTP / DVD-R / DVD-RW / DVD+R / DVD+RW