- CD-R Format

The drive supports 8X, 16X, 24X, 32X and 40X (CAV) writing speeds, as they were reported in Nero Burning Rom.

However, if you keep the eject button pressed for a few seconds, until the activation led blinks twice, the drive will change to 48X maximum. Note that this is a procedure you'll have to repeat each and every time you open and close the drive's tray, otherwise it reverts back to 40X.

We used Nero CDSpeed in order to check the drive's writing strategy at maximum speed. The reported average speed when recording at 40X is 32.47X.

- CD-R Recording Times

We created an 80min data compilation with Nero Burning Rom and recorded it on a 700MB disc. The writing performance varies according to the inserted media. Below is a chart depicting all recording times with various media. All media we tried were burned at 40X and the reported times are almost the same with all brands.

The SONY drive's best CD writing time of 2:59min with Intenso media, is very good for 40X recording. NEC, which supports 48X, reported a slower time of 3:05min.

- Other features

According to Nero's CDSpeed and its overburning simulation test, the SONY drive is capable of recording 101min on a CD. Note that this test is done with a 99min disc. No such overburning is possible on an 80min CD, while not many drives can write to 99min discs.

- CD-RW Format

The DW-Q30A supports 16X and 24X rewriting speeds 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, when recording at 24X, reported an average writing speed of 22.49X.