CDRW Drives Hit 52X Speeds

Sr.Mixalot writes "Just when you think you couldn't burn those shared MP3s any faster, Asus comes out with a 52X Burner. This review at Hot Hardware shows just how fast this drive is versus a Plextor 48X unit. Amazingly, this new breed of CDRW Drives can burn a complete 700MB CD in about 2.5 minutes!"

Comments

Question

[Marxist Commentary]

Are these just tricked up 48x drives like the 52x CD-ROM drives of a few years ago?

Great!

[MonTemplar]

Now we just need for CD-R/W media that can write *reliably* at 52x !

I can see these drives being woefully under-utilised till middle of next year...

Re:Great!

[SN74S181]

It doesn't really matter. The main thing is to push the envelope, so that anybody staggeringly stupid enough to buy the 'top end' drive pushes down the price on the nice 36x drives the rest of us will purchase.

my honest opinion

[MoceanWorker]

I had a 2X burner since 1997.. got it for $250.. around then.. poor thing just recently died (R.I.P), but I feel that rather than buying a new CD-RW.. i think the best bet is to purchase a DVD-RW..

After researching a bunch of CD-RW's and reviews, etc.. I went ahead and purchased a Sony DRU-500A for $310.. pricey of course, but eh..

Just got it a week ago, and I'm impressed.. the CD-RW speed is only 24x, but the main thing is I can burn DVDs as well (which have been flawless, so far ;-))

So I guess pricewise and maybe because it's still a new technology, a CD-RW might still be the best for some, but if you know DVD-RW's are round the corner and expect to get one very soon, might as well take that approach..

Slashdot has gotten stupid...

[alienw]

First, Lite-on had a 52x drive for a while now. Secondly, even 24x drives burn a cd in 2.5 minutes. Thirdly, this is just a blatant plug for a shitty hardware review site.

You can tell something is obsolete when...

[the eric conspiracy]

it has been perfected.

DVD burners are really looking good these days. At 4x DVD you can burn the equivalent of 8 CD's on 1 DVD in 15 minutes.

Faster, more convenient and occupies less space on that already crowded CD rack.

Pardon my Ignorance

[Stigmata669]

But shouldn't we measure CD-R speeds in multiples of burn time rather than CVA? Problems like this lame release would be solved. 1x burner... 70 min for a 70 min cd. 2x = 35 min. etc. Thus a burner that creates a cd in 2.5 minutes is 28x.

Thus the headline should read 28.32x burner released, compared with 28x, saves you 15 seconds!!

Law of Decreasing Return With 90% Chance of Rant

[shoemakc]

Which was a bigger deal, the jump from 2X to 4X or 48X to 52X? Even ignoring the fact that the faster drives use a form of CAV and not CLV, a jump from 48 to 52 is... ...that's right, not even 2% faster. Factor in that it's hard to find media that will consistantly burn properly at those speeds, and well, what's the point?

And I don't want to hear from those people who say "well i've burned 100's of cd's at 48X and they all work fine for me." Yeah, in that one cdrom you use them in. Have you ever used the nero testing utility to check the number of C1 errors on those "perfect" disks of yours? Yeah they may work on your drive, but how about someome elses? And how about a year from now when they have a few scratches in them? I for one would hate to maintain multiple versions of disks, one for me, and one for everyone else.

In the end it all comes down to this. How much time does 52X save if you just have to burn it again anyway?

My advice is this....if you're getting a new burner, by all means get a fast one. When you start using new media, run some tests to find a safe speed, and then stick with that. But to those of you who ditch your perfectly fine 32X+ writer to buy a new 52X one...I think you're fools.

-Chris