The Sony DRU-800A supports 48X CD-R and 24X US-RW recording speeds. Sony insists the default writing speed for the CD to be at 40X and the only way to enable 48X is by pressing the eject button for a few seconds after you have inserted the disc.

• CD-R Format

The drive supports the following speeds for CD media recording, illustrated in the screenshot below:

According to Nero CDSpeed, the drive confirmed the maximum 48X speed. The test started at 21.69X and finished at 48.91X, having an average speed of 37.04X. Click on the image above for an enlarged view.

• CD-R Recording Times

For the burning tests, we created an 80min data compilation through Nero Burning Rom, recording the data on several 700MB discs. The Sony DRU-800A needed 2:47 minutes to complete this task at the maximum 48X writing speed.

In the following graph we can see the recording times for the Sony burner with various CD-R media inserted.

• CD-RW Format

The Sony DRU-800A supports 24X Z-CLV rewriting speed with Ultra Speed Rewritable Media (US-RW).

Below you can see the Nero CD-DVD Speed writing simulation test with blank 24X US-RW media from Mitsubishi Chemicals.

The drive starts the writing task at 16.01X and reaches a maximum of 24.02X having an average speed of 22.48X.