Final Words
What makes a DVDR drive perfect? Well, for one, it has to be able to write to just about any media that we throw at it and then read it back without a hitch. A perfect write should have no PI/PO(DVDR) or C1/C2(CDR) errors on it when read back with PlexTools.So, what makes a DVDR drive acceptable, a great deal, better than the rest? The ideal, best drive out of a group should be able to write to high quality media without any problems, and should be able to read back a disc to which it wrote in the first place. It should have no problems reading a disc unless it reports a successful write incorrectly. This is what we saw in our benchmarks today. There were a few drives like the Toshiba SD-R5372 and LG GSA-4163B that could write a disc "successfully", but not read it back with its own laser.
Half of these drives failed to even see Ritek brand RW media, which cannot be caused by a bad batch of media. Sony's DRU-720A wrote to them perfectly, but even its disc had a good number of PI errors. We were really dissapointed in the NEC ND-3540A's performance when compared to drives like the BenQ DW1640, but hopefully their performance will improve as their BIOS matures.
The only drive we saw that could write to the majority of discs and quickly at that was BenQ's DW1640. It had average performance on most of the benchmarks. but always had a successful read to go with the successful write. The only disc that it could not write to was the MKM A03 8x DVD+RW.
Besides that single issue, the DW1640 has features to aid in successful writes, as well as bitsetting features to allow greater compatibility of the media to which it writes. The bitsetting utility can be downloaded from BenQ's website. Over these 6 DVDR units, we recommend the BenQ DW1640 for its performance and reliability in writing to various types of media. Expect this drive to start showing up on retail store shelves very soon.
Special thanks to BenQ for supplying us with the DW1640.
Special thanks to Sony for supplying us with the DRU-720A.
Special thanks to Marken Communications for supplying us with Verbatim brand test media.
Special thanks to Antarra Communications for supplying us with Ridata brand test media.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
54 Comments
View All Comments
trance - Friday, July 22, 2005 - link
Ordered mine from NCIX.com. Still haven't recieved it yet though...Gage8 - Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - link
"Any clue as to when the new BenQ will be available?"That's my question. It seems like the BenQ is the drive to have...yet no one has it.
trance - Sunday, July 17, 2005 - link
Any clue as to when the new BenQ will be available?vtqanh - Saturday, July 16, 2005 - link
No Plextor drive? What kind of optical drive review that doesnt include a Plextor drive?USAF1 - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
#48 - Apparently, there are some pretty serious compatibility issues with the Plextor PX-712SA/PX-716SA and some of the NEWER controllers. For example, from what I've read on various forums, the native nForce4 SATA controller has some pretty serious issues with burning CD's and DVD's. Plextor's tech support department has commented on the issue and blamed nvidia's SATA implementation/drivers. Check out this compatibility matrix from Plextor's website:http://www.plextor.com/english/support/media_712SA...
See any nForce4 boards on there? I imagine compatibility issues would explain the two star newegg rating.
PuravSanghani - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link
#47: Its a slow and painful process isn't it? We would all like to be done with those wide flat annoying IDE cables and hook ourselves up with the thin, easy to work with SATA cables.The fact is, as long as the more critical [hard] drives are being manufactured with the IDE interface, there will still be a demand for the IDE interface on motherboards.
For optical drives, there really isn't a need for the switch to the SATA interface because 1)there wouldn't be any performance increases due to the limitations of current DVDR hardware and media, and 2)because the IDE interface is still around on motherboards.
I'm sure that once all HDD manufacturers have converted fully to SATA, optical drives will follow suit much more quickly since all we need is basically a SATA bridge. But until then...let us begin to give IDE an extended good-bye starting...nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn-now!
Anton74 - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link
...and speaking of the Plextor PX-716SA/SW (SATA), it has a customer rating of 2 out of 5 on newegg (based on 341 votes). Yet all but 3 of the 40 customer reviewers rate it 5 out of 5.Apparently the drive needs an updated BIOS and an appropriate up-to-date motherboard to function properly. Maybe that's what caused the low customer rating?
Just wondering.
Anton
Anton74 - Thursday, July 14, 2005 - link
On a side note, why is it that nearly all of these drives are still PATA, and not SATA? There's 3 such SATA drives listed for sale on newegg, the Plextor 712 in 2 different colors, and the Plextor 716. They are of course more expensive than most at $83 (with $20 mail in rebate) and $126 respectively.I'm just wondering why we can't get rid of IDE altogether. Is a SATA interface more expensive to make? Can't be that big a difference looking at hard drive prices.
Anton
Miggle - Wednesday, July 13, 2005 - link
BTW, how come the sony 800A wasn't reviewed? Its being sold here but I chose the LG drive over itRMSe17 - Wednesday, July 13, 2005 - link
PuravSanghani, sorry didn't see your first post when I posted