Yamaha CRW2100ix FireWire CDR-W- Page 7

RW Writing Tests

The Yamaha CRW2100ix doesn't support 10x (CLV) writing speed with HS RW media. This was confirmed from the specs: Re-Writing: 2X, 4X, 8X (CLV) in DAO, TAO mode, 10X (4X-10X Full CAV) in Fixed Packet Writing. That means the drive is not really 10x write capable since it writes only 10x under packet writing (which most users don't use anyway). As Yamaha informed us about this subject:

"...10x ReWriting" is only available in case of below (a) + (b) ;
(a) Writing to a high speed ReWritable disk
(b) Writing with PACKET WRITING !

10x ReWriting will be done by using "CAV" writing so that the writing speed will vary according to the position on the disk. At an inner side of a disk, writing starts with 4x and it goes up to 10x at the MOST OUTER side. Please note that it is NOT POSSIBLE to SELECT 10x BY YOURSELF and there is no way to confirm the current speed on writing softwares. The CRW2100ix will select the speed and make it change automatically..."

We used Nero 5.1.1.8 for writing CDs in maximum RW writing speed for all the tested drives. Yamaha CRW2100ix was a little faster than the two other drives (597 secs) which was almost the same with the other two, since neither of them supported real 10x re-writing speed. The Yamaha FireWire model was faster than the other two when erasing HS RW media (about 20secs faster):

- Packet Writing Tests:
We used Ahead InCD v1.67 for all Packet Writing tests. We used Ricoh HS RW media and we formatted it. The formatting of the media takes around 10min. After formatting, we tested all four drives for their packet writing performance. Below is the properties tab for the Yamaha CRW2100xi. Even if we selected the 10x write option the drive seems to ignore that and returned to 8x option automatically. (Same case with it's brothers CRW2100E/S)

The formatted disc had 530mbs of free space. We copied a 403 MB file (403.147 kbs) from a Hard Disk (on the same pc as the writers) to the formatted RW media-using explorer (we dragged and dropped) we completed the test twice to eliminate possible time measurement faults and user error:

Yamaha CRW2100ix comes second in packet writing after the SCSI model and it was a little slower than the other two when we asked it to read it...

Verdict of CDR-W Results:
None of the Yamaha CRW2100 series is the best choice for RW writing. Even though the drive supports the new HS RW writing mode, they fail to achieve the higher (10x) writing speed of it. Even in the packet-writing test, which Yamaha supposed to support 10x, the speed is not exactly this. It begins with 4x and increases to 10x at the end of the disc. That is probably why the results were that low (around 4.95x writing).