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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!"

21 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. Thanks, but no thanks. by roka · · Score: 5, Funny

    12x ought to be enough for everyone ;)

    1. Re:Thanks, but no thanks. by handsomepete · · Score: 5, Informative

      Geez, I thought I'd never find this. It shows the testing procedure for CD-R/RW media by Sony (which put together the Orange Book standards with Philips (and Kodak?)). That should give a little insight as to what's being tested and what would have to be modified to work at a faster speed. I've also wondered about this. Hope it helps.

  2. LED magic by peculiarmethod · · Score: 5, Funny

    'They glow green during read operations and yellow/amber during writes.'

    When is someone gonna post how to exchange the green LED for super duper bright blue?

    pm

    --
    ** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
  3. Question by Marxist+Commentary · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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    Stop corporate

  4. Great! by MonTemplar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...

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    -MT.
    1. Re:Great! by SN74S181 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  5. my honest opinion by MoceanWorker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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..

    --


    "The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
  6. Awesome by cioxx · · Score: 5, Funny


    This sounds a like a perfect recipe for Senseless Explosion

  7. 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 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.

  8. comparison to LiteOn 52x? by h0tblack · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

  9. 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!!"
  10. Slashdot has gotten stupid... by alienw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  11. is this really an improvement? by EvilStein · · Score: 5, Funny

    I guess that the higher numbers sound kind of cool, but when the thing has a glitch that flings the CD-R media out of the drive at 5000mph, nearly severing your head and wedging itself in your stereo, you've just gotta ask yourself "Is burning a CD 2 minutes faster worth the risk?"

  12. 2.5 Minutes? by anonicon · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's still a lot slower than the matter generator on Star Trek. When the hell are we going to get those? :-D

  13. You can tell something is obsolete when... by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  14. What about... by atomico · · Score: 5, Funny
    ... a CD-RW drive that lasts more than two years, even with light use? And records reliably?


    That would be sooo nice... maybe our grandchildren will see it :)

  15. Re:It's no great shock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually they are using CLV, but it is Z-CLV (Zone-CLV) burning usually starts around 16x, then ramps up to 20x a little ways into the disc, then to 24x, and so on. If you're only burning a half full disc, you'll never hit the zone where u get into the higher speeds. I wish they would stop with this Z-CLV crap and just do plain old CLV. If they used 52X CLV, then a disc would be able to be burned in about a minute and a half. Z-CLV requires the burner to actually stop burning, spin the disc up to the next zone speed, and then resume the burn. This stopping and starting can introduce errors in the disc, however they are usually taken care of by the ECC built into the ISO9660 format, The error correction on Audio CDs isn't as sophisticated, so u can sometimes hear pops on the disc where the burner stopped and restarted. Also since the error connection is being used to fix errors purposely put there by the burner, it leaves less correction to fix what it was put there for, the scratches that are usually inevitable throughout the life of the disc. If you want to burn discs without this Z-CLV crap, then burn at 16x or lower, 16x or lower on most Z-CLV burners is usually CLV mode. So 1x-16x=CLV, >16x =Z-CLV

  16. Obligatory Simpsons reference by graveyhead · · Score: 5, Funny

    CowboyNeal: It can burn a cd in 2.5 minutes.

    Homer: Aww 2.5 minutes. I want it now!

    --
    std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
  17. Pardon my Ignorance by Stigmata669 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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!!

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    Yawn.
  18. Law of Decreasing Return With 90% Chance of Rant by shoemakc · · Score: 5, Insightful


    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

    --
    --an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--