52X IDE CD-RW Recorder Roundup - Page 4

- Waitec STORM 52/2

Last but not least, the Waitec STORM 52/2 arrived to our labs and could not be excluded from this roundup. As with the previous drives, the STORM 52/2 supports 52X CAV reading/writing for the CD-R and 24X US-RW writing.

The drive supports the SafeLink feature to prevent buffer under run and the "OPC" technology to obtain optimal power of the laser while writing. The cache buffer is 2MB and the Mt Rainier feature is not missing.

The installed firmware version is v1.05. The drive can also retrieve C2 error information. The following pictures show the available reading/writing speeds. As with the AOpen drive, the Nero InfoTool does not report the supported 48X writing speed.

- The package

The European retail package includes the STORM 52/2, a quick installation manual, Nero Burning Rom and InCD and two 52X CD-R discs. The drive's price is not yet known, but should be around 100 Euro. Waitec offers two years warranty for the drive.

- Looking at the drive

On the front panel of the drive you can see the load/eject button, the audio play/skip button, the thumb wheel volume control, the reading/writing indicator (LED) and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The drive is easily identified from the "Waitec Storm 52" logo on the right side of the disc tray.

On the rear panel of the drive you will find IDE bus connector, the power supply connector, the master/slave jumper, the digital audio output connector and the analog audio line-out connector.

- Inside the drive

After removing the bottom screws we can see the internal of the drive. Note that by doing this the warranty becomes invalid. The drive uses Ricoh chipsets as well as the AOpen CRW5224:

- Installation

The Waitec drive was installed as a Master device in the secondary IDE channel of our test PC, and worked at Ultra DMA mode. After booting, it identified itself as a "WAITEC STORM52/2". Un-checking the "JustSpeed" box, all inserted media can be written up to 52X, else the writing speed will limited down to 40X or even lower...