Lite-On CD-RW/DVD Drives Author: Daniel Topler Date Posted: April 14th, 2003 SLRating External (24x12x24x8 CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive): SLRating (WriteOn 40x24x40x USB 2.0 CD-RW Drive): SLRating (Internal 52x24x52x CD-RW Drive): Bottom Line: What happens when your CD Burner breaks, or it's just not fast enough? There are many drives out there we reviewed 3 from Lite-On, but how do they perform, and what did we think? Read on to find out in our official review.... Article Navigation Introduction External 24x12x24x8 CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive WriteOn 40x24x40x USB 2.0 CD-RW Drive Internal 52x24x52x CD-RW Drive Performance Pros/ConsSoftware Conclusions Gallery Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 >> Discuss This Article

Performance

Here's where it really counts. What's the big deal about a CD-RW drive if it doesn't perform well? My system specs are below. They don't make a big impact on the CD-RW drives, but they do make some impact, so I may as well list them.

Alienware Aurora DDR
Asus K7N266-C
Athlon XP 2200+
512MB DDR 2100 RAM
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
40GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM ATA 100
Windows XP Professional

CD Winbench 99 Test

Although the CD Winbench 99 test is old, it provides the most accurate measurement for real-life CD performance. Performance was excellent with the Lite-On drive. The overall score was 2400 for the internal 52x24x52x drive, which is extremely high, and towers over, or equals drives with the same specifications. CPU utilization was higher then most drives, but this shouldn't be an issue for people with powerful computers. You can easily notice the big drop of performance with the external 24x12x24x8x. The drive is just a 24x read, while the other drives are 40x, and 52x. It's apparent that this drive is not a drive aiming for top performance, but rather convenience. Everything else was excellent, and I was extremely impressed with the results of the Winbench 99 test, for all of the drives. Remember, when looking at the scores, lower is better for Access Time and CPU Utilization, but higher is better for Overall, and both Transfer Rate tests.

Nero CD Speed

Nero CD Speed is a benchmarking tool which is incorporated into the Nero Burning software. For testing, I used a CD that is 79:00 in length (not a music CD), so the results are fairly accurate. To view the testing results, just click on the images below for a full version.

Lite-On External 40x24x40x

  

CD-DAE

I was unable to perform the CD-DAE test. The two external drives were not recognized by the program.

Nero Testing

For testing Nero in real-life performance, I compiled for the CD-R tests, exactly 700MB of data into a folder, and then burned the CD. For the CD-RW tests, since I was limited to 650MB (maximum capacity for the CD-RW I was using), I deleted certain files from the folder, and I made the total 651MB.

For the CD-R tests, I used Memorex 52x media, and for the CD-RW test, I used one Lite-On 10x-24x CD-RW media. For the CD-RW tests, I formatted the disk after completing each test.

CD-R Performance

     

Performance was more then excellent. The 52x internal drive burned 700MB in just 2:33. The external 40x using USB 2.0 burned the same data in just 3:09. The 24x SlimCombo drive had good results, but I was expected better. It burned the same data in 6:46, more then 4 minutes more then the internal 52x. Keep in mind, however, that the SlimCombo's drive's main objective is not performance, but convenience, and the SlimCombo delivers there.

Performance

     

Performance was very good. The internal and 40x24x40x drives burned 651MB of data at almost the exact same time, which is good because they are both 24x drives. The USB 2.0 drive completed the burning process in 4:57, while the internal drive completed it in 4:59. The SlimType Combo drive burned the same data in . Keep in mind that the SlimType combo has half of the CD-RW burning speed as the other drives, so performance will naturally be lower. If you are looking for pure performance, of course, you wouldn't want to pick the SlimType Combo drive.

Pros/Cons

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Article Navigation Introduction External 24x12x24x8 CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive WriteOn 40x24x40x USB 2.0 CD-RW Drive Internal 52x24x52x CD-RW Drive Performance Pros/Cons Conclusions Gallery

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