- Reading Tests

To create an image of the various protected titles to the hard disk, we used the latest version of Alcohol 120% software and the appropriate settings, according to the protection type of the inserted discs. Below you can see the duration of each process as well as the transfer rate in each case.

Game Title	Protection Scheme
PSX "NBA Jam Extreme"	Lybcrypt
Serious Sam The Second Encounter	SafeDisc v.2.50.051
VRally II	SecuROM v.2

The Asus drive overall, is a faster reader/ripper than the other two drives in this comparison, with much higher reading/ripping speeds with PSX and SecuROM protected discs. In the case of Safedisc, the reported speed is about average.

- Writing Tests

The ASUS CRW-5232A-T supports the DAO-RAW writing mode. For checking the drive's EFM correction status, we used 3 different game titles with different SafeDisc 2 versions having the latest software patches installed. After making the images of the various titles onto the hard disk, we burned them (at maximum speed) with Alcohol 120% v1.9.2.1705. Two different discs were created for each title; one with the "Bypass EFM error" enabled and one more with the function disabled.

• Fifa 2004 - Safe Disc v3.1x
• The Sims Superstar - Safe Disc v2.9x
• The Sims Unleashed - Safe Disc v2.8x
• Serious Sam Second Encounter - Safe Disc v2.51.021
• Max Payne - Safe Disc v2.51.020

The table below shows the results of the attempted backups and whether they worked (game installed / played normally), or not.

Drive	Fifa 2004 SD v3.1		Sims Superstar SD v2.9		Sims Unleashed SD v2.8		Serious Sam-Second Encounter v1.07 SD v2.60.052		Max Payne SD v2.51.020
	EFM OFF	EFM ON	EFM OFF	EFM ON	EFM OFF	EFM ON	EFM OFF	EFM ON	EFM OFF	EFM ON
ASUS CRW-5232A-T	No	Yes

The drive will produce working backups with the newest v3.1 builds. This is a big plus for this drive and something very important for all CD-RWs, since they must compete in a market where DVD burners are now quite cheap but fail to deliver the goods in the area of games backups.