Lite on 40x12x48 CD-RW Drive

 

After debating for many days which drive I wanted to go for I finally decided on the LITE-ON drive because of a few more features it had over the plextor 40x drive, which I have owned and praised for the last 2 years. (1) Being able to overburn cd's. (2) The abilitiy to read and write Sub-Channel Data. (3) Most tests run on the 2 drives are neck and neck in performance, So this made the LITE-ON an easy choice over all.

 

Technical Specifications:

Drive Interface E-IDE / ATAPI (Ultra DMA Mode 2)
Capacity up to 99 minutes
40x Write 6000 KB/s
12x Rewrite 1800 KB/s
48x Read 7200 KB/s
Data Buffer 2 MB
Random Access Time Avg. 80 ms
Compatibility all popular CD formats/CD-R/CD-RW
Drive Interface E-IDE / ATAPI (Ultra DMA Mode 2)
Capacity up to 99 minutes
40x Write 6000 KB/s
12x Rewrite 1800 KB/s
Formats Supported CD-Audio/CD-ROM (XA)/CD-Bridge/CD-I/Video-CD/CD-Extra
Write Methods Fixed & Variable Packet, TAO, SAO, DAO, Raw Mode, Over-Burn.
Operating System DOS 6.xx,/Window 95/98/Me/NT 4.0/2000/XP

 

Minimum System Requirements :

Pentium 166MHz above
DOS 6.xx, Windows 95/98/NT/XP/2000/ME, OS2 Warp, Mt.Rainier
Minimum 100MB free hard drive space
Minimum 128MB RAM

 

Test System:

Intel P3 700 MHZ
Abit bx 133 Motherboard
SB live Sound Card
512 MB PC133 SDRAM
ATI Radeon VE 32 MB Display Adapter
Windows XP

 

Installation:

Adding the Lite on burner to the test system was a simple task of setting the jumper to slave, securing it in a drive bay, and connecting the IDE cable and power adapter.  I powered up the system and checked Device Manager to verify that Windows had found the new drive, which it did.

 

Testing Software:

Nero 5.5  (OEM version bundled with the drive).  

Nero CD Speed v0.83 (Beta version)

Transfer Speed v0.99.2 (Smart Projects freeware)

SiSoft Sandra (trial version)

Clone cd (trial version)

 

Testing Results

 

Sandra:

Sandra results show the "LITE-ON" just slightly higher in the read test than that of a 32x reader.this caught me by suprise beings it is 48x reader.

 

CD Speed:

WHAT IS Z-CLV ?

Results above show the drive averaging 30.5x speeds for writing, The drive starts out burning at 20x and 8 minutes into the burn the drive switches gears and burns at 24x, then at the 18 minute mark of the cd another jump to 32x burn, and finally to 40x at the 53 min. mark till the end of the cd, resulting in an average burn of 30.52x.

Results above show a 650 MB clone image writing to a "24x imation CD-R", and setting clone to burn at MAX. I was able to produce a working backup in just over 3 minutes.

Transfer Speed:

Another test of the drive's data reading performance.  showing a low of 18.59x (inner tracks) and 39.39x (outer tracks).  Highest burst speed topped out at 45x

 

Nero:

This is a 787MB audio CD burn performed in 3.45 minutes (3min 45sec) at 40x.  Unfortunately this is the one and only 32x cd-r that I had to conduct this test with. (no lite on did'nt include a 40x cd-r). and I watched my buffer drop to almost -0- causing the (SMART-BURN) to pause the cd recording and refill the cd drives buffer, otherwise the cd creation probably would have been slightly faster.   

 

Pros:

Cons:

 

Conclusion:

If you are still burning with 12x or less drive, I would say this would be a nice little upgrade for you. But, if you already own a 24-32x drive i dont think you are going to notice a big increase in speed. My reason for choosing this drive is plain and simple: Its ability to read and write sub-channel data, allowing it to make perfect 1:1 backup copies of "SD2" protected programs.

 

OVERALL RATING: 9/10

 review by wesg

 

Links:

LITE ON

PC Abusers Homepage