PleXWriter PX-W4012AA IDE CDR-W - Page 10

RW Writing Tests

We used Nero 5.5.7.3 for writing CDs at the maximum RW speed for all the tested drives. Plextor PX-W4012 supports 12x re-writing speeds, and among the drives above, Philips PCRW3210 supports 10x-writing speed:

The CyberDrive CW-058D continues to be the faster re-writer at 12x writing speed. The Plextor drive needs 402 seconds to end the task, while CyberDrive CW058D 394secs. Plextor supports 12x re-writing only with the Ricoh CDRW74/80-10XCW media. If you use other HS-RW media, the recording will be automatically lowered at the 10x writing speed.

- Packet Writing Tests

We used Ahead InCD v3.21 for the packet writing tests with the Plextor's HS-RW media bulked in the retail package. The formatted disc had 534mbs of free space. We copied a 403 MB file (403.147 kbs) from a Hard Disk (on the same PC as the writers) to the formatted RW media using Windows Explorer (we dragged and dropped) and we completed the test twice to eliminate any possible time measurement faults and user errors:

The Mitsumi CR-480ATE and CyberDrive CW-058D are the two faster re-writers under the packet-writing mode with 8.81X. The LiteOn LTR-32123S follows with 8.55X, AOpen CRW3248 with 8.35X and Philips PCRW3210 and Plextor PX-W4012 come last with 7.1X / 7.02X respectively. AOpen CRW3248 takes the lead over the reading part with 23.17X. Plextor PX-W4012 gets the third place with a 17.35X average reading speed.

Note that even we tried several media (including Plextor's HS-RW) we didn't managed to increase the drive's writing speed from 10X to 12X (under packet writing mode).