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Hardware

Forty-Speed CD-RW Shootout 355

Posted by timothy from the sir-do-you-know-how-fast-you-were-going dept.
Keefe John writes: "Several months ago, 40x burning became a reality when Plextor got the jump on all of the other optical storage companies with the PX-W4012TA CD-RW. Since then, many companies have been coming out with versions of their own. As with any genre of products, a few stood out above the rest. Namely, the original tried and true Plexwriter; the wallet-friendly Lite-On, and the speed-daemon Teac. Today Techware Labs will be comparing the three drives on their relative merits. Read the full review over at Techware Labs."
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Forty-Speed CD-RW Shootout More

Forty-Speed CD-RW Shootout

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  • plextor 40x12x40 is great and quiet (Score:4, Informative)

    by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @08:29AM (#4110904) Journal
    "Several months ago, 40x burning became a reality when Plextor got the jump on all of the other optical storage companies with the PX-W4012TA CD-RW."

    I got this plextor drive shortly after it came out and amazingly, it is QUIETER than the 24x10x40! If you are looking for pretty quiet CD-Rw, I say you should check the plextor 40x12x40 out. Furthermore, the slower one has a fan on the back and mine does not! (Try to get the European version, btw, because it comes with Nero as opposed to Roxio EasyCD.0

  • Note to other submitters (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quixote ( 154172 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @08:30AM (#4110909) Homepage Journal
    If you [slashdot.org] submit a /. story [slashdot.org] to a site [techwarelabs.com] that you run, please check your bandwidth first to see if it can survive the Slashdot effect [bnl.gov], or at least put up a less-graphic version of the page.
    • please check your bandwidth first to see if it can survive the Slashdot effect [bnl.gov],
      Slashdot effect eh? I wonder what that is:

      TCP connection to 'ssadler.phy.bnl.gov' failed: Connection refused.

      I guess I'll never know.
    • Since I can't read the story, I'll ask here. I just returned an OptoRite 40x12x40 drive. It had the following problems: hung when reading a CD for duplicating (back off RIAA - it was a Linux disk); hung when writing a CD-RW; and would get a media error about 500MB into writing a CD-R. Does anyone know if this sounds like a bad drive, or is there some Linux (Mandrake 8.2) incompatibility? It said it would work with Linux on the box.

      Also, is OptoRite the same as the Lite-On? I see alot of $40 40x12x40's and they all seem to be OEM'ed from the same place.
      • OptoRite is distinctly NOT Lite-On. Lite-On OEM'd drives have a characteristic faceplate that the OptoRite doesn't share.

        AFAIK, Cendyne and Buslink are both shipping Lite-On drives at the moment.

        A friend of mine had similar problems with an Optorite unit. [storageforum.net]

  • Yeah, this is SO worthwhile (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mirk ( 184717 ) <slashdot@nOspaM.miketaylor.org.uk> on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @08:31AM (#4110916) Homepage
    Hey! Now you can buy a 40x writer instead of the boring, pedestrian, so-fifteen-minutes-ago 32x writers that we've had to make do with up till now.

    Great. That means you can now burn a 74-minute long CD in 111 seconds instead of 139. Just think what you could do with those extra 28 seconds!

    Or, no -- wait! Surely it couldn't be that this is just another manifestation of My CPU's Got More Megahertz Than Yours syndrome?

    Could it?

    • Re:Yeah, this is SO worthwhile (Score:5, Interesting)

      by killmenow ( 184444 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @08:43AM (#4111006)
      Think of a small run CD-R house that uses CD-R towers for burning. Let's say they have two or three of these and they do CD-R burning for their customers (think small area bands who can't afford going to large CD replication houses and ordering 5000+ stamped CDs).

      If they're trying to burn 1,000 CD-Rs and they can save 28,000 seconds (nearly eight hours), it translates into doing more of these 1,000 CD-R jobs (or even 500 CD-R jobs) per month, per year, etc.

      Which translates into making more money.

      Make sense now?
      • Not to nitpick but dude if you're going to get 1000 cds burned instead of stamped your getting hosed.

        costs for 1000 cds burned will 640 bucks bullk, ~1200 w/ packaging(full retail). does it, and no i don't work for them just used them [cdsonic.com]
      • Hey, I'm in a bunch of cheap @ home garage bands. This is how garagebands make CD's. You go to a recording studio for a day ($500 at least) and make a single CD with multiple tracks. You take this "master" CD home and buy 1000 CDR's. You then submit yourselves to the insanely monotonous task of sitting at a computer for 5 hours a day...CD in...*whrrrr*...CD out...repeat. I personally would like to save an extra 8 hours of doing this. SO in the long run, it can help home buisnesses. The only way it might not be as useful is, as stated, for a person to make a few CD's for personal use.
      • <i>If they're trying to burn 1,000 CD-Rs and they can save 28,000 seconds (nearly eight hours), it translates into doing more of these 1,000 CD-R jobs (or even 500 CD-R jobs) per month, per year, etc.

        Which translates into making more money</i>

        Exactly. I work at a stockphoto agency where we burn really large amounts of CD's. Believe me: every increase in speed translates directly into money for us.

        Patrick
      • Only if your monkeys can change the CDs faster than 28 seconds. That may seem trivial, but motivating a minimum wage someone to keep an eye on CD's without dozing off/browsing slashdot is not easy. It really is better to get an automated system, but they won't use these drives. They may use the same technology, but the drives featured are for end users, not production shops.

        Actually it is just a progression of technology. Things will always get faster/better/cheaper over time. There is no need to justify these small differences because the benefit will go largely unnoticed. The only place it matters is in advertising.
      • What your comment made me think of, are all those CD-ROM outlets in singapore where you choose whatever is on display on a table outside, such as really cool software compilations. A tthe counter, the guy will either bring the media from behind the counter, or insert a couple of blanks into a tower and ask you to wait 3 minutes while they are made for you.

        I guess the waiting will now be in the area of 2 minutes, and best of all, the price won't probably change either !

        (before anyone asks: no I'm not buying anything from there and I don't live in singapore either, but yes I could see with my eyes what I describe when I went there; it's right in the open, and no-one there seems to care).
      • Only if you're a software pirate. :)

        If you're duplicating a legitimate source of data, you'd be a fool not to just create a single master image and get it stamped.

        Seriously, when you're a small-time band, you burn a few hundred a month... big deal. If you're trying to do a few thousand, you're costing yourself more money in wasted time than you're saving by not having a duplication place do this for you.

        OTOH, if your time is worth nothing to you (monetarily OR socially), then by all means, sit and stare at the blinkin' lights all day and flip discs. Imagine they're hamburger patties, but that you're getting paid a negative minimum-wage for doing it. :)
    • Hey! Now you can buy a 40x writer instead of the boring, pedestrian, so-fifteen-minutes-ago 32x writers that we've had to make do with up till now.

      Cool!

      Is it faster than the 2x I've currently got in my desktop, or the 4x in my laptop? It is? Well then, maybe this review is useful to me after all...

      Cheers,
      Ian

    • hmm, yes you are right they should not put out faster products if somewhat slower ones exist already. I don't think they expect 32x owners to want those, people like me on the other hand (who own a 10x that is on it's last legs) just might want to get it.

  • to be correct... (Score:5, Informative)

    by gosand ( 234100 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @08:31AM (#4110922)
    To be technically correct, they have a MAX speed of 40X. They don't burn at that speed throughout the entire burn, they may reach that speed at some point though. That's why the actual burn time of a CD has pretty much reached it's limit. Going from 8x to 16x is not the same as going from 16x to 32x.
  • Does anyone still develop SCSI CDRW drives? I need to connect a couple to a unix workstion and using IDE/USB/Firewire is not an option.
    • Does anyone still develop SCSI CDRW drives?

      Fortunately, yes! Plextor makes 2 excellent Ultra SCSI models, a 12/4/32 and a 12/10/32. Both are available in internal & external models. You can view the 12/10/32 model here [plextor.com].

      I've owned Plextor IDE & SCSI drives before, and never had a problem with any of them; I actually can't recommend them highly enough. While I wish they would make a faster SCSI model, I'm at least happy that they are still making SCSI models at all!

    • Does anyone still develop SCSI CDRW drives?

      Plextor does [plextor.com], has, and probably always will as long as SCSI means anything in the marketplace.

    • Re:SCSI CDRW drives? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Zathrus ( 232140 )
      As others have mentioned, Plextor does. I believe there are some Toshiba models still available too. Just do a search on Pricewatch [pricewatch.com] and you'll see who has what. I know that Newegg [newegg.com] carries the Plextor.

      Of course, you'll pay a hefty premium ($50 more for the Plextor SCSI, or 300% compared to Lite-On, Cyberdrive, or other inexpensive CD-RWs) and get a much slower drive (12/10/32 vs 40/12/40 or 40/12/52).

      Unfortunately you don't have any choice in the matter for your instance. But people building workstation PCs with all SCSI are (by and large) just screwing themselves now.
      • > and get a much slower drive (12/10/32 vs 40/12/40 or 40/12/52).

        Sanyo has a 24x/10x/40x SCSI CD-RW drive available [digital-sanyo.com], but they're not as cheap as their IDE cousins of course. Maybe it will pay for itself in fewer frisbees and frustration?
        • Modern IDE CD-RW's don't make frisbees. Even under heavy CPU load the various techs like Smart-Burn and ExacLink prevent buffer underruns.

          If you make a frisbee nowadays it's because either the media was bad or you tried to burn at too high a speed for the media. That's about it.

          Yes, I used to be a SCSI head. Then I got over it, took a look at modern IDE devices, and realized just how much a waste of money it is for the consumer.

    • I've actaully been doing a fair amount of checking on this very subject over the last few days. I'm a SCSI bigot, I have been since the Amiga days, my system is all SCSI all the time, and it's going to stay that way, thank you. (And yes, all my ten-year-old Amiga drives are still directly readable on my rig.)

      However, I don't have a CD-R/RW drive yet. I do have a Plextor 40x CD-ROM drive with a Wide Ultra SCSI interface, so my first thought was to get a Plextor SCSI CD-RW drive.

      Yikes! $250 for a 12x writer? I think not. Other manufacturers aren't too much better. The best deal I've found so far for native SCSI is the Yamaha CRW-F1ZS, which is a 44x drive for around $220-250.

      However, if you're willing to be a little sneaky (and live on the bleeding edge), there's a company called ACard [acard.com] that makes an IDE-to-SCSI bridge. This little gadget slaps on the back of any IDE drive, effectively turning it into a SCSI device. They are available in wide [acard.com] and narrow [acard.com] flavors. They also have LVD flavors. The best prices I've found so far for the single-ended versions are around $70 for narrow, and $74 for wide. I haven't found any prices for the LVD versions.

      For most hard drives, this is a huge win. You can easily pay $200 for a SCSI drive, and the largest size you can typically find is a paltry 18G. Subtract $70 for the IDE-SCSI bridge, and you can buy a fscking huge IDE drive for $130. However, for CD-RW drives, it doesn't put you too far ahead of the game in terms of cost. 40x IDE writers are about $150. Add $70 for the bridge, and you're back in the $220-250 range, which is what you can get a native SCSI drive for.

      And there's a problem: While hard drives and CD-ROM drives are fairly standardized in terms of command packet format, CD-RW drives aren't yet. As such, ACard won't guarantee their bridge will work with the CD-RW drive of your choice, since it may require an untranslateable packet. (They've only tested against, and guarantee interoperability with, Ricoh drives.)

      Hope this helps.

      Schwab

  • Well as it seems the review site is just about Slashdotted, I'll post my own review.

    I ordered the 24x Plextor CD-RW drive, but was sent the 40x, so I happily installed it.

    Got a spindle of Phillips 40x CD-R media. I have burned 25+ discs now nearly all under 200 seconds, and not one coaster.

    I still need to find some good, cheap, 12x CD-RW media to try that end of things out. But I do have one 4x disc that I was fooling around with. It always performed flawlessly when burning to it.

  • 40X? (Score:3, Redundant)

    by Lxy ( 80823 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @08:34AM (#4110946) Journal
    Ok, here we go. Burning an 80 minute/700 MB CD we get:

    1X: 80 min
    2X: 40 min
    4X: 20 min
    8X: 10 min
    12X: 6.6 min
    16X: 5 min
    24X: 3.3 min
    32X: 2.5 min
    40X: 2 min

    Umm... what are we doing that we need to save 30 seconds on burning a CD? The only real value to this is that it would drop the price of the 8X burners. Anything past 16X is pretty much bragging rights.
    • 32X: 2.5 min
      40X: 2 min

      Umm... what are we doing that we need to save 30 seconds on burning a CD?

      For those burning a single CD, it's not a big deal. For use in mass duplicating, this raises throughput from 24 an hour to 30 an hour, and this is an important number to those users.

      But I agree, for your average desktop user, this is probably no more important than the MHz rating of the CPU :-)

    • Re:40X? (Score:2)

      by swb ( 14022 )
      Umm... what are we doing that we need to save 30 seconds on burning a CD?

      Depends on what you're burning and how many copies you're making.

      For people running low-end duplicators, this might be meaningful for small-run productions where an extra :30 * N copies means a job gets done quicker.

      I agree with your general conclusion thought that for most people 16x and up is often a distinction without a difference. Alternatively, if you're archiving a massive dataset to CDR involving tens or hundreds of discs in some time-sensitive way, you could get lots more done in a shorter amount of time. I know that tape is a better choice in this situation, but it might not be practical for those who need to read the data (eg, end users on plain PCs).

    • Re:40X? (Score:5, Informative)

      by kzinti ( 9651 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @09:16AM (#4111206) Homepage Journal
      Ok, here we go. Burning an 80 minute/700 MB CD we get... 40X: 2 min

      Nope. It's not linear. At 1x speed a drive will read or write at 1x from beginning to end, but at 40x, you only actually get 40x on the outer tracks. That's why it's called a 40x-MAX drive. On the Asus that I own, the disc speed is divided up into five zones; it starts writing at around 16x on the inner zone, incrementing until finally it's reaching 40x on the fifth, outermost, zone. You can actually hear the drive shift gears at each zone transition (although you have to listen carefully because the drive is surprisingly quiet). Writing a 700 MB CD at 40x takes about 3:30.

      --Jim

    • Re:40X? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by artemis67 ( 93453 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @09:18AM (#4111224)
      Then again, they probably don't see people upgrading from 32x as their primary market. They probably see first time buyers, PC manufacturers and people upgrading from 16x or less as their market.

      And yes, I consider giong from 5 minutes to 2 minutes a huge speed bump. I burn batches of CD's (plus backup copies) at a time, and I find it pretty tedious. If I can shave 3 minutes off of each burn, absolutely it's worth it.
      • Actually most think that Biger = Better, but that would not be true, so it's bigger == better. Anyways.
        Consumers think that a higher number is better. If you can sell at 48x drive, and your competition is still selling a 32x drive, for about the same price, what do you think they will buy?
        It's what we call Gloatware, you have it, you gloat about how slow the other people's computers at the LAN are. In a game like Rogue Spear, where everyone has to come in at the same time, whoever takes the longest to start the game (slowing everyone up) gets bashed the most by the person with the most Gloatware.
        Consumers want the fastest, even if it's not the best, or really any better at all. I am pretty happy with my SCSI 12x burner, even though Smart and Friendly is no more.

    • Re:40X? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by beebware ( 149208 )
      Umm... what are we doing that we need to save 30 seconds on burning a CD?
      Sleeping? I know last week when I had to do a complete re-format of my machine (40Gb and 30Gb HD's both filled to within 90%), I wished I had a faster than 16x CDR (would have given me just over an hour in bed extra - 19hours continually burning is tiring...). Got a lovely big collection of CDs now though! :)
    • Note that this is a CD-RW. This means that you can mount it as a drive. While parts of the CD can wear out, the latest hardware/software, will mark these spots and write around them, making using it as a cheap/MB removable drive feasible.
  • do these new drives spin the disc really fast or use some kind of multi-write technology? The article didn't mention it (as I can see)
    I remember reading that the current drives are reaching a limit where a disc will shatter because it is spun too fast, could these drives have a problem with that?
    • do these new drives spin the disc really fast or use some kind of multi-write technology? The article didn't mention it (as I can see)

      A 40X writer doesn't spin the disc any faster than a single-laser 40X reader would.

      I had a kenwood "52X" drive that actually spun the disc at about 16X and had multiple beam pickup... much quieter, very fast, but didn't last very long. Now it's unusable because it gets so hot, and won't read half my CDR's.

  • Effect on life of a CD? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @08:41AM (#4110990) Homepage Journal
    Sometime back on /. there was article on how spinning a CD too fast would result in a shattered CD. Now I would be interested in knowing how high spin speeds, below shattering speed, would effect the life span of a CD - would we see pit damage due to heat or any other effects?
    • I've noticed that audio CDs burned at 8x on my burners (an HP and a Philips) have a tendency to skip more in my car and fail to mount at all on older audio CD players. CDs burned slower (4x or even 2x) tend to skip less or not at all in my car and are readable on some finicky audio CD players.

      I haven't noticed a difference in longevity or usability in data discs, though.
      • I have a Plex 16x, and I burn all my audio CD's at that speed. I have yet to see a single problem playing one of my CD's anywhere. I try to use good media, but even el cheapo stuff seems to work OK. I think this is an issue that is highly dependent on your burner.
        • Maybe its a medium issue too. The last batch of media I had was a 100 pack spindle that I just recently got finished with. I think it might have been just in spec for 8x burning. The new spindles are 16x, I should try some 8x audio cds and see.

          The thing that frosted me about 4x burning was it seemed like I always wanted a new CD in a hurry (leaving for trip, etc) and with TOC and all the other finishing, it always seemed to take 25 minutes or so for a full disc. 12 minutes I could have lived with.
          • Might be a media issue, but:

            A few years ago, when everyone was buying and selling 4x burners like hotcakes because they were just so damn fast, I picked up an 8x Plextor.

            Various forums and newsgroups were still full of messages from people having various problems with various combinations of burner, media, and reader. People were generally having a difficult time making things work, some or all of the time. Because of this, I decided to research things a bit before dropping any serious amount of money on CD-Rs.

            So. I picked up two samples each of some ~10 varieties of CD-R. Maxell, Memorex, Sony, TDK, the "new" 8x-rated Kodak, the "old" 4x-rated Kodak, high- and low-end Ricoh, something called "CD Rocket Fuel", and so on.

            I burned a bunch of identical audio CDs onto these discs, and then collected a variety of players with which to play them (an abused playstation, an Aiwa portable, a Carver rackmount unit, and cdparanoia+stopwatch on the 32x Plextor CD-ROM in the same machine), hoping to get an idea of the error rate of various combinations.

            Results? 2x-rated media burned fine at 8x. 4x media burned fine at 8x. The only 8x-rated media in the test was the Kodak gold/green and the S&F "Rocket Fuel".

            The Kodak, the priciest of the whole lot, performed least well. The anti-skip on the Aiwa portable took longer to fill its buffer, the Playstation was more susceptible to shaking-induced skips, and cdparanoia took longer to read it.

            Which was kind of a bummer, because they were advertising shelf lives in the range of 100 years and I'd like my data to outlive me.

            Since then, I've bought a few spindles of TDK which I've been happy with at home. I did pick up a batch of Verbatim blanks which were absolute trash, though, and would not read in my (non-abused) Playstation at all.

            In the studio, where we had the same 8x Plextor, we had no difficulty, complaint, or general bad vibes from using the cheapest media we can find. Mostly, this was because it was a money-losing enterprise, and a few cents saved per blank added up to, say, getting few pizzas one night instead of a bag full of $0.99 cheeseburgers from Hardees.

            Since this experience, I've been using whatever I can find cheap, though I will pay a bit more for unbranded blanks.

            (100 packs of some unbranded Asian-imported generic knockoff CD-R are on sale right now at a local department store for something like $15. I intend to buy the remaining stock on payday.)

  • Frisbee/Coaster turn out (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dark Nexus ( 172808 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @08:42AM (#4111003)
    As I recall, each speed increase turns out more frisbees than the last. 10x burns less reliably than 8x, etc.

    Not to mention that CD-RW drives DO have a theoretical maximum number of CDs they can burn before they're worn out to the point of turning out NOTHING but frisbees...

    Given those 2 points in mind, then what's the point for most people? I'm sure small software or music studios might be able to make use of it (probably cheaper, or at least easier than having their CDs pressed, especially for small runs), but I can't really see it being that practical for the home user very often (yet), especially since I have yet to see a CD-R rated for more than 24x, with most being 16x and the Plextor at least (apparantly) won't let you burn at a higher speed than the CD-R(W) is rated for.

    • Re:Frisbee/Coaster turn out (Score:5, Informative)

      by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @09:00AM (#4111106) Homepage
      As I recall, each speed increase turns out more frisbees than the last. 10x burns less reliably than 8x, etc

      If you have a first-generation crappy drive, or use media that isn't designed for that burn speed then that's true.

      theoretical maximum number of CDs they can burn

      Yes, and HD's have a theoretical average number of hours before failure. So? All mechanical systems fail at one point or another.

      yet to see a CD-R rated for more than 24x

      You haven't looked recently, have you? Try here [newegg.com], or here [compusa.com], or here [pricewatch.com].

      Plextor at least (apparantly) won't let you burn at a higher speed than the CD-R(W) is rated for

      That's dependant on the software, not the hardware. I know you can turn it off in Nero, and probably most other CD burning software.
    • I recently burned over 500 copies of CD's (Attn. RIAA: content is church services, so no copyright issues here). Equipment included a CD tower with 40x Lite-On drives, media was rated for that speed.

      I had three coasters. That is a 99.4% success rate.

      So the overall reliability at high speeds is good. You are probably more likely to have coasters when using a CD-R (even the same ones I have) in a computer where demands are made by other processes, hard drives are fragmented, and users are idoiots (j/k).
  • but my problem is finding 40x media, I can usually only find media certified for 32x. Does anyone have any experience using 32x media at higher speeds?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I haven't found the speed rating to be very accurate. I've got a 24x burner and I've use media that was unrated, all the way through 24x rated.

      It's coastered a few very old CDRs when I forgot to set the speed to 8x (they were unrated) but this was the only speed related problem.

      I've burned 8x certified media at 24x, and it seems to work in just as many readers as the other disks.

      Actually, my biggest problem has been cheap media that happened to be rated for 24x. The spindle said Memorex, but the disks were unbranded white and came up as CMC Magnetics when I checked them. They never actually failed a burn, but only one drive other than the burner could ever read them and the burner was really slow at it even. I just checked a 2-month old disk and I got a ton of read errors.

      I've never had the problem before where a disk I burned was only readable in some drives, so I attribute it completely to these disks. But, a friend tried them in his old burner and they seemed to work fine. I never tried them as 2x, so maybe they were just very very over rated.

      So, I guess the answer is, good companies who make their own media will put on a good margin of error to make sure you don't coaster and blame them. You can double or triple most listed ratings from all the big names, but get unbranded media and you're lucky if it burns at all. I normally use cheap cheap disks, like GigaStor, but those CMC ones were the first totally unbranded ones and I guess they were counting on the fact that you couldn't identify them in the future. (Like motherboards so cheap they don't come with a company name.)

  • What? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by shepd ( 155729 )
    No 40x LG review? (I can't get at the article, so I'm going to assume what slashdot said was true).

    Cheap, and reasonably reliable. Works like a champ in linux. I'd get another LG.
  • I have the 40X liteon (Cendyne OEM'd box) drive for around $70 last month. It replaced a Verbatim 32X drive I got the month before (took back to get faster drive at same price>

    While there is only a comparitively small increase in speed the actual usable speed was more than a minute better. The Verbatim drive took much longer to close the session out and waited till later in the burn to switch up to it's highest speed.

    As far as the argument that faster speeds are bragging rights only .. I beg to differ. I follow the alt.binaries.multimedia.anime and alt.binaries.anime groups on Usenet and 1.5 - 2 gigs per day of downloads are not uncommon. While this only works out to maybe 3 disks per day I don't religiously burn everything I have every night. Things like wanting to burn only episodes of the same show on a disk or simple lazyness do matter.

    I sometimes queue up 35 gig or more of stuff to burn .. and at 2:30 per disk vs 3:00 - 3:30 per disk. It makes a big difference.

    Someone may comment that I just need to get a DVD drive. That's the next step, for right now a 40x burner and $0.10 per CD or lower is more cost effective than $270 (with shipping and such) for a DVD burner and ~$2.00 per DVD.

  • Speed Kills (Score:2, Interesting)

    by locarecords.com ( 601843 )

    Faster is not necessarily better.

    We prevent drives writing faster than 8x because we have found the disks cause problems further down the line when sent as demos (unplayable) or to CD pressing plants where there are errors found on the disks.

  • I guess it's time to replace my crappy HP 2X CD-Writer...
  • Dont exactly remember the link, but I read somewhere that you could effectively update the firmware to have LiteOn 40x run at 48x. I own a Lite On 40x12x48x and my previous one used to run only at 2x (otherwise the buffer errors would kick in). And it was a huge difference to jump from 40 mins to 3 mins.

    I dont own a Plextor, but I would say on a cost to performance basis, LiteOn wins hand down. Never turned out a coaster in the last few hundred CDs.
  • Naturally, when you talk about saving a minute or less when burning a CD, it reminds me of...

    Moe: Heh heh, I got it used from the navy. You can flash-fry a buffalo in forty seconds.

    Homer: Forty seconds? But I want it now!

  • Hrm... but the big question is... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@wo[ ]net ['rf.' in gap]> on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @09:44AM (#4111425)
    These new CD-RW drives are nice, but what I really want to know is can I use them to make a backup of my copy of NWN, WarCraft3, etc? Considering the damn copyrestrictions they place on them, with 90 day warranties for replacement (ha...). Especially considering if you have a "collector's edition" game with special CDs (e.g. Diablo 2, WarCraft 3, etc), if that CD gets damaged, the best you get is a replacement with a regular edition CD (hey, it's nice to have a goodlooking set!)).

    A) No-CD cracks don't work because most games are beta-quality, and patches come out continually.
    B) Unauthorized patches are bad if you want network play (I paid for the game, I want to play online!)
    C) If my CD breaks, and I couldn't copy it, you bet I will look for a pirated copy. Sorry, but the price of today's games (add taxes and stuff, and it's over $100 Canadian!) mean I'll buy *ONE* copy. If it breaks, you're going to get roasted the next time one of your games comes out (I paid $100 for this shiny disc I can't use anymore?).
    D) A disposable CD-R backup is excellent when you go to LAN parties as well as to friend's houses. Never worry about losing a game somewhere.

    (And it isn't a piracy issue. If I pirated the games, all I'd do is burn the damn ISOs onto CDs, copy them to my hard disk, and use a CD emulator like Daemon Tools (great for mounting Linux ISOs on Windows). I'd just need any damn CD-RW drive that can write a ISO9660 filesystem!)

    Ah, furgitaboutit. I'll just use CloneCD to dump the CDs to ISOs.
    • This makes me wonder.

      Ever since mp3's have been out, I have practically stopped using CDs altogether. I still purchase a CD which contains music that I enjoy, to support the music.

      However, I don't open these CDs, but instead I just put them in my cd-rack and let them collect dust. Recently, I've been a lot less interested in a particular genre of music, so I've begun to sell these unopened CDs, and delete the corresponding music to make it all clean.

      So now, I'm selling "Brand New" CD's at very close to their original price, even though the "license" of my listneing to the music is "used".

      Sort of weird. It almost feels like cheating, as I legally enjoyed the privledges of listening to the music for free. :) Although, I'm sure the RIAA would consider this whole thing stealing...

      Now I imagine the same can be done with computer games. I can buy the "box" at the store, leave it sealed, stick it on my bookshelf, download the game off the net, play it for a week or two, and when I'm done, I sell the game as brand new and unopened on half.com or ebay or whatever...

      Anyone care to share their thoughts on the legality/morality/*lity of this?

    • I have 2 beautifull children ages 4 and 2. They will on ocasion render a CD that there dear old pop(me) leaves within their reach, or they get hol of one of there games, and render it usless.(once jelly gets in the pits and dries, it isn't coming out). I have found most companies will send you a replaement, if you send them the disk.
      Some charge some do not.

      normally I tell them That I won't pay, they need to send it on there dime, or I'll just won't buy there products. Only a few have refused to bunge.

  • 64x is as fast as it gets (1/2 the speed of sound) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sh0rtie ( 455432 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @09:46AM (#4111454)

    This Page [216.239.51.100] [google cache] tested CD Roms to destruction and concluded the fastest a CD rom could spin at without self-destructing was 64x to quote

    "A 64x drive using CLV would have to rotate the disc with 33,920 rpm when reading an inner track, exposing the hub of the disk to a tangential force of some 45 N/mm2. A point on the periphery of the disc will be moving with 213 metres per second, slightly more than half the speed of sound. Can the disc take that?
    The answer is no. A powerful no.

    At about 52x, i.e. 27,500 rpm, most manufacturer's CDs blew up in a rain of plastic particles, leaving their marks on the premises. The result was a pile of shimmering plastic chips."

    seems a bit silly/iresponsible to even get close to those speeds if storing data reliably is an issue (especially using 20c media), sure the drive might reach those speeds but will the media ?, has this drive got something special to prevent destruction (multiple heads etc) or is it just using brute force ?

  • 40x? Piffle! (Score:5, Informative)

    by richie2000 ( 159732 ) <rickard.olsson@gmail.com> on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @09:51AM (#4111491) Homepage Journal
    A 48x [cdrinfo.com] Plextor CD-RW has been announced:

    • Although the maximum reading speed of the drive is 48x, it will be factory set at 40x and includes a SpeedRead function that enables users to select the higher speed.
      Patrick Peeters explains: "The reason we use this unique approach is to provide flexibility to customers: for the vast majority 40x is the ideal mix of speed/quality, but there are a small number that will require 48x. However, the increase in speed from 40x to 48x can increase the noise for any drive in the market. In extreme circumstances using high-speed reading, where the CD is severely scratched, it can explode in any drive and even cause injuries to the user. We have redesigned the PlexWriter 48/24/48A drive to strengthen the front bezel to prevent any injuries. To our knowledge, we are the only manufacturer in the market to have implemented this safety feature."

    Oh, the burnmanity!
  • Ummmm let's see at 64x the disk flies apart and kills everyone in the room just like a jet turbine failure. So let's say they lick that problem.....how soon before we see an alcohol/chlorine/halon/liquid nitrogen injection Pelltier effect cooled drive chassis unit.

    Seriously if you need to save that much time just invest some dollars for a multi duping unit and burn 4 or 6 or 12 or 20 CDs at the same time.
  • Every single damn story about CDR burners has people bitching about the apparent worthlessness between the difference between 40X and 48X or even 24X and 48X. Well folks, this difference is real if you burn more than on CD (OMG!). Get over it!

    007, you're mission is to burn 1000 CDs, you have to choices, buy a 40X burner for $45 or buy a 48X for $55 (Lite-on, pricewatch.com). What do you choose?

    Damn easy choice isn't?
  • Whatever about saving that precious extra 30 seconds or so during burning, I prefer to know that my burner can handle some of the more neferious copy protection schemes now coming to market.

    Many of these are based on sending abnormally regular EFM subchannel data [cdfreaks.com] to the CDRW and relying on it to crap out. You can get details about the capabilities of current burners here [feurio.de], but this CloneCD list describes exactly which burners have the firmware "Correct EFM-Encoding" cojones to defeat the latest copy protection [elby.ch].

    I'm glad to see that the "wallet-friendly Lite-On" drives seem to feature some of the the most consistent support [elby.ch] for defeating EFM trickery.
  • I just got one of these, 44x24x44 nice.
    The writing is full CAV too with 8Mb cache. And Mt Ranier support, which is just wonderful, for those that don't know this means you just put in a blank CDR/CDRW and start packet writing to it - the formatting is done in the background so no annoying wait before the disc is usable.
    I'm not too sure about the Disc T@2 feature, I suppose it's nice putting graphics round the edge of a CDR but I tend to fill them up.

    Err, it wasn't a reason for me to get it but somebody might care that the LED is blue/purple. Oh and my previous fastest CDRW is a 12x10x32 so this is a useful increment.

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