Sanyo CRD-BP3 SCSI CDR-W - Page 7

CDR-W Tests

The Sanyo CRD-BP3 is the first Sanyo drive that supports 10xRW-writing speed. As most of you remember, the PX-W1210A also supports 10xRW writing speed, so we decided to de exactly the same tests as we did in the PX-W1210A review and compare both drives. Let's begin with:

- RW tests:

We used Nero 5.0.1.3 for writing CDs in 10x RW writing speed. Below are some results from various RW writing speeds:

The Sanyo CRD-BP3 worked fine with the only HS RW media we possessed (Plextor HS RW media) with various writing speeds. It also doesn't face any problems writing at normal 4x RW media (only at 4x of course).

- Erase Time

We used Padus DJ v3.00.449 for measuring the erase times for the Sanyo CRD-BP3 using HS RW media:

The results we got also showed several differences in the erase time as in the case of Plextor PX-W1210A… Notice that sometimes drive halted after doing a full erase. We are not sure if that happened due to the media or due to a drive bug. When we receive more HS RW media we will retest the drive and post some updated results.

- Packet Writing

We installed PacketCD v3.00.209 and downloaded the latest driver pack (mmc2  v2.49). The updated driver worked and recognized Sanyo CRD-BP3. A new tab was added in the drive's properties, from which you can select reading and writing speeds for PacketCD formatted CDs.

The 10x writing selection was not selectable so we assumed that the default setting is for this writing speed. We left the defaults settings and we did for both HS RW and 4x RW media the following tests:

1) We tried to format the HS RW media. The test took 20:36min to complete (same time as with the PX-W1210A).
2) We tried a normal 4x RW media to format it. The format completed in 32:39mins (same time as with the PX-W120A).

The Sanyo CRD-BP3 was recognized from PacketCD formatter as "Generic SCSI3/ATAPI driver" however worked fine:

After the PacketCD format we had a CD with 530mbs free space (due to PacketCD format). We copied a file-sized 403mbs (403.1476kbs) from HD to the PacketCD formatted RW media using explorer drag and drop move. We used 2 RW media. One was the HS RW and the other one a standard 4x RW media in order to see the differences in the reading/writing speed:

The results are very close to the ones we got from the same test with the PX-W1210A. Again the 10xRW writing speed in Packet Writing seems to be a dream since the real average writing speed reaches 6.80x. However it is much faster than the previous packet writing speeds we had (2.77x).

Next, we tried to copy the same file to the HD using the Explorer drag and drop method. This was completed in 344sec (average reading speed 6.66x) for the HS RW media and in 820secs for the 4x RW media (average reading speed 2.79x). Here we have a difference from the PX-W1210A since it showed the same reading speeds for both HS and normal RW PacketCD formatted CDs. Erasing files from PacketCD formatted media took only a couple of seconds to complete.

Verdict of CDR-W Results

As we expected the drive worked great in most of the tests however we faced some problems. The drive locked up after every full erase task in both HS and normal RW media. We are not sure what caused it (maybe it was the media, maybe a drive bug...). Again the erase time for different writing speeds seems different (we noticed the same thing with the PX-W1210A). The drive's performance with PacketCD is the same, as with the PX-W1210A, it seems to be reading HS RW media faster and normal 4x RW media slower. Overall, the drive's performance with the new HS RW format was great!