Sony CRX 210E1 IDE CD-R/RW - Page 6

CDR Tests

Sony CRX-210E1 supports 4X, 8X, 12X, 16X (CLV), 18X-40X (P-CAV), and 21X-48X (CAV) writing speeds.

Using an 80min disc, we can see the drive's starting and ending recording speeds, according to the Nero CD Speed software. With the "turbo mode" disabled, the drive starts writing at 18.57X and gradually reaches 40X approximately in the 68min. The average theoretical recording speed is 31.50X:

In order to use the 48X writing speed, you should enable the "turbo boost function". After inserting a disc to the drive, you should press the Eject button for five seconds. The Busy indicator will blink twice and the speed switches to 48X. The busy indicator while writing is orange when the turbo boost is enabled, and green with the speed set to 40X. Notice that by opening the tray, the maximum speed is (re)set to the default value (40X). Nero CDSpeed writing test gives Sony CRX-210E1 an average writing speed (48X) of 37.21X:

Sony CRX-210E1 uses the "SmartBurn" feature in order to maintain the best writing quality for the inserted media. The maximum allowed writing speed is adjusted according to the disc specifications. Nero Burning Rom allows user to enable/disable the feature in the "choose drive" tab.

- Recording Tests

The amount of the data we burned was 704MB (80:01:26), for all the drives. Sony CRX-210E1 gave exactly the same result with Cyberdrive CW088D. The Plextor drive is 11 seconds slower.

The above graph shows the recording performance of the drive in the supported speeds. The results are the best we had for each speed. Compared to the performance at 16X CLV, the drive is:

• 48X (CAV): 2:49 mins faster
• 40X (P-CAV): 2:36 mins faster
• 32X (P-CAV): 2:13 mins faster
• 24X (P-CAV): 1:36 mins faster

The best recording times at 48X (turbo boost) came with SKC 24X media. The result was not expected, since these media are not 48X certified, and the total writing time was not affected by the SmartBurn feature. The following picture comes from Nero, after burning to these discs with Smartburn disabled:

We enabled the SmartBurn, and expected a different result. However, the total recording time was not different since the writing speed was not limited:

Notice that the SmartBurn feature adjusted the writing speed with other non-48X media we used.

Another interesting issue is that Nero Burning ROM allowed us to select the 48X recording speed although we had not enabled the turbo feature. That could be considered as a "bug" since user easily will confused and thought that already has enabled the "boost mode". The burning process started normally and only the total writing time (3:02 min) could reveal that the actual writing speed was 40X.

Sony could possibly allow the control of the "turbo boost" option into the burning software, since the current manual control can be easily neglected by the novice user, in his daily burning tasks. Lastly we have noticed with some media, that at 94-97% of the writing process, the writing speed dropped from 48X down to 32X. As it seems "SmartBurn" decides the media cannot handle the maxium speed and drops the writing speed to 32X. That is a nice feature and will protect from bad burns.

- Overburning Tests

The drive can overburn up to 97 mins without any problems.

- CD-Text Results

The drive can read/write CD-Text without any problems.

- CloneCD Writing Tests

The CloneCD software reports that the drive supports the DAO-RAW feature. With the use of proper media, DAO-RAW writing can be performed up to 48X (CAV). For checking the drive's EFM correction status, we used 2 different game titles with different SafeDisc 2 versions with the latest software patches installed. We used the Sony CRX-210E1 as reader/writer at maximum reading/recording speed. Two discs were burned for each game (Amplify Weak Sectors On/Off) and the results are posted in the below table:

As you can see, the drive has no problems with the SafeDisc v2.60.x protections. The produced backups worked even with the "Amplify Weak Sectors" option disabled. It is very possible that the latest SecuROM versions cannot be backuped with the Sony drive, but currently no drive cannot do either, so this shouldn't considered as a drawback.