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CDRW Drives Hit 52X Speeds

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the fastest-coasters-yet dept.

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!"

16 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. It's no great shock by stratjakt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That these cd-r speeds are ramping up so quickly.

    After all, they are using CAV not CLV to determine it's maximum speed.

    2.5 minutes is impressive until you realize that yesterdays cd-r burned in 2.51 minutes.

    Besides, it's no good for me.. Playstation and Xbox games don't come out reliably if burned any higher than 4x.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  2. What is the limit where... by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 2, Interesting

    the media falls apart and send shards of plastic into your jugular and eye socket?

  3. That's great and all, but... by NineNine · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... I just want solid, reliable recording first. Sounds like the cart is being put before the horse first. I want a CD-R that's gonna burn perfectly every time. I don't care how fast it is. Burning something at 52x 4 times to get it to work (and making 3 coasters in the process) is slower than burning it at 12x. Besides, CD-R isn't generally a process that is needed to be done fast. It's for dupes or backups. Right now, I burn at 4x and it works every time. I won't go every faster until the drives/software are better.

    1. Re:That's great and all, but... by NineNine · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Part of the problem is that drives have no buffering, and the whole thing is reliant on the CPU. It's tough to burn CD's at a decent speed unless you have a 1Ghz+ (Intel speeds) CPU. And even then, from reading the other posts, it sounds like I'm not the only one with problems burning at higher speeds.

    2. Re:That's great and all, but... by Blkdeath · · Score: 3, Interesting
      .. I just want solid, reliable recording first. Sounds like the cart is being put before the horse first. I want a CD-R that's gonna burn perfectly every time. I don't care how fast it is. Burning something at 52x 4 times to get it to work (and making 3 coasters in the process) is slower than burning it at 12x.

      Enter BurnProof<tm>! While my Athlon XP1800+ and WD ATA100 hard drive rarely have trouble feeding my burner data at the full 24X, if the system is really busy the burn slows down. I've tested burning CDs while booting a VMWare Windows 2000 session and haven't produced a coaster yet. I also very rarely drop below 20X burn speed. The 32X at work is similar (and on a lower-powered Athlon, no less) but still doesn't often drop below 30X.

      Of course, were I burning an audio CD I'd likely drop the speed down to about 8X anyways, because some CD players don't appear able to read discs burned greater than that (the 10 CD changer in a friend's car, for example).

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    3. Re:That's great and all, but... by jridley · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Dude, you're doing something wrong. I burn at 32X all the time and it's been hundreds of discs since I've burned a coaster. I burn at least 2 or 3 discs a day, sometimes as many as 30 or 40 if I'm doing duping runs.

      I used to burn lots of coasters until I gave up on crap quality blanks. I just buy Imations and Fujis when they're on sale for like $3 for 50 after rebate, and haven't had a problem since.

      When I was buying the $4 for 200 unbranded crap at Office Clone, yeah, I was throwing away 10 out of 50, even burning at 8x.

      I'm using a Sanyo OEM burner and a Teac laptop burner (which is only 24X) and a JVC 32X at work. The Sanyo was cheap and works as well as any recorder I've ever used.

      Always buy a drive with buffer underrun protection. If you're burning under Windows, make sure the drive is running in DMA mode, not PIO, or you'll have about 300 underruns burning a disc over 8X. Also beware; Windows sometimes SAYS it's in DMA mode but really it's in PIO; check Google for registry tweaks to fix it.

  4. How to shatter a cd at 100x by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I recall there was some experimentation to determine the maximum possible speed for existing cd drivers. What was found was that as one approached 100x, the physical media commonly used today would shatter. Sorry captain, she just wont take it! So, unless materials used for cd's change, there is an upper limit to this cd x speed madness...

  5. Ummm... by damiam · · Score: 2, Interesting

    52x burners have been out for a while. I ordered a 52x Lite-On from newegg a week ago (and recieved it a few days ago - it's fast). There are a few others burners out there too. I don't see how they can call it "fastest burner ever" without even testing the various other 52x burners.

    --
    It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
  6. comparison to LiteOn 52x? by h0tblack · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder how this compares to other 52x drives out there like the LiteOn 52x24x52?

  7. Yea but.... by Chicane-UK · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I find that the faster you burn CD's at, the more regular CDROM drives have issues reading them. And this isnt with cheap media either - I always use Sony or TDK or similar.

    We have a nice 30 something speed plextor CDRW at work, but whenever I burn something there, I set it down to about 12 or 16 speed to make sure its going to work ok on my Pioneer DVD drive at home.

    --
    "Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
  8. Not that much faster ... by jetlag11235 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    An increase from 48X to 52X only represents an 8.33 percent increase in speed. Am I the only one not impressed by this?

    -- jetlag --

  9. Re:Thanks, but no thanks. by chamenos · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Let's realize that they haven't factored in the cost of 52X certified media"

    one thing i haven't really quite figured out is why the cdr media has to be "certified" up to a certain speed. the same way cars that can go faster have to make up for the increased speed with better tyres, aerodynamics, etc, shouldn't the increase in rotational speed of the cdrw drive be made up for by a stronger laser to make up for the decreased amount of time the cdr media is exposed to the laser?

    don't mean to start another technical debate but i can't seem to figure this one out.

  10. Re:Slashdot has gotten stupid... by JLester · · Score: 3, Interesting
    We use the RImage Desktop product to duplicate our CDs. Load up 50 blanks in the hopper and start burning. The arm grabs a CD, puts it in the printer to print the label, removes it from the printer and puts it in the drive, burns the CD, and places it in the output hopper. The model we have is pretty old and is SCSI based. Their new ones are Firewire and much faster than ours. We plan on upgrading in the spring.

    Jason

    --
    "FORMAT C:" - Kills bugs dead!
  11. Re:Great! by hackstraw · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Here here! I only have a 12x burner and have burned hundreds of cds, almost all of them at 8x. Why? So I can reliably multitask and do something else while the burn is going on. When cdrecord ejects the disk, I take the one that just finished, label it, and put it in a stack with the rest and slap another one in the drive, rinse repeat. I was never in a hurry to burn a cd, I guess because I could burn them faster than I could listen/archive them. Oh yeah, etree rocks!

  12. Actually... by Tuxinatorium · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Lite-On has had a 52x/24x/52x model out for a long time now. It started selling at Newegg.com in the beginning of november for about $79

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  13. Re:Thanks, but no thanks. by ergo98 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The "niche" is that it becomes the new norm, just like every other improvement in computer technology. Did printers stop at 1 ppm because "who needs faster"?

    Personally I can absolutely see the use of these. Every now and then I have to transfer large amounts of data between locations, and I usually am just about to leave at a moments notice (i.e. I'm working on something and Bob drops by) so I want to quickly spin off a backup to bring with me. The difference between 1 minute and 6 seconds and 5 minutes is HUGE in that situation, just as it's huge when you're printing off a big report, even though that 1ppm printer is great when you're only printing off the odd page.