TDK CyClone 12/10/32 IDE CDR-W - Page 3

RW reading tests

For the RW tests we used Ricoh HS RW media written at 10x speed. The TDK CyClone drive has slight better performance than the PX-W1210A; this however is nowhere as good as what the Sanyo CRD-BP3 delivers:

CloneCD Tests

Procedure:
We used CloneCD (v2.7.8.1) and three original CDs (Rally Masters, Euro2000 and Incoming) in order to test the reading time for the TDK CyClone 121032  (firmware v1.02). We also tested the reading performance with backups of the original CDs. This is due to reading speeds being different for original media than speeds for backup media (i.e. slower). For your pleasure, we added the results for the Plextor PX-W1210A (firmware v1.04) to help when making your own comparisons.

Results:

a) SafeDisc Results:Euro 2000 (Total: 257982 sectors - 10141 bad sectors) - Reading Speed: Max

b) LaserLock Results: Rally Masters (Total: 321528 sectors - 6317 bad sectors) - Reading Speed: Max

c) SecuROM Results:

The TDK CyClone drive doesn't support reading of Subchaneel data!

Verdict of CloneCD Tests:
The TDK CyClone CDR-W drive performed as well as we expected. It's reading performance when reading protected CDs was fast and matched the Plextor when using original CDs. However, things are not the same when using backup CDs since the reading times seem to be longer. This is not so much of a problem but the real issue is that the drive cannot read SubChannel data! :(

This is a problem that most Plextor TLA#202 drives seems to have. Our Plextor drive was the TLA#000 series and didn't have any such problem. You can't really blame TDK for this because if you buy a brand new Plextor model, which has TLA #202, you probably will not be able to read SubChannel data.