Yamaha CRW2100E IDE CDR-W - Page 7

RW Writing Tests

The Yamaha CRW2100E disappoints at that point since it doesn't support 10x (CLV) writing speed with HS RW media. This was confirmed from the specs: Re-Writing: 2X, 4X, 8X (CLV) in DAO, TAO mode, 10X (4X-10X Full CAV) in Fixed Packet Writing. That means the drive is not real 10x write capable since it writes only 10x under packet writing (which most users don't use anyway). As Yamaha informed us about this subject:

"...10x ReWriting" is only available in case of below (a) + (b) ;
(a) Writing to a high speed ReWritable disk
(b) Writing with PACKET WRITING !

10x ReWriting will be done by using "CAV" writing so that the writing speed will vary according to the position on the disk. At an inner side of a disk, writing starts with 4x and it goes up to 10x at the MOST OUTER side. Please note that it is NOT POSSIBLE to SELECT 10x BY YOURSELF and there is no way to confirm the current speed on writing softwares. The CRW2100 will select the speed and make it change automatically..."

We used Nero 5.0.3.1 for writing CDs in maximum RW writing speed for all the tested drives. Yamaha CRW2100E of course since it didn't supported 10x writing gave the bigger time with 600sec when the MP7120A had the best (479sec) and Plextor drives came second with 488sec. The Yamaha also gave back the biggest erase time when erasing HS RW media:

- Packet Writing Tests:
We used Ahead InCD v1.67 for all Packet Writing tests. We used Ricoh HS RW media and we formatted it. The formatting of the media takes around 10min. After formatting, we tested all four drives for their packet writing performance. Below is the properties tab for the Yamaha CRW2100E. Even we selected the 10x write option the drive seems to ignore that and returned to 8x option automatically.

The formatted disc had 530mbs 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 explorer (we dragged and dropped) we completed the test twice to eliminate possible time measurement faults and user error:

The results really show that Yamaha's approach to packet writing is very bad (supposed to be 4x-10x). All other 3 drives are way faster when writing/reading HS RW media in packet writing mode. However not many users use packet writing so it shouldn't be a drawback. Again, however, we must say that we hoped that Yamaha, the pioneer of RW technology, would have better performance than the competition.

Verdict of CDR-W Results:
The Yamaha CRW2100E is not the best choice for RW writing. Even though the drive supports the new HS RW writing mode, it misses to support the higher (10x) writing speed of it. The competition supports 10x writing and CRW2100E cannot have any chance against it. Even in the packet-writing test, which Yamaha supposed to support 10x, the speed is not competitive. It is actually 4x and increases to 10x at the end of the disc. That is probably why the results (4.96x writing) were very bad. The competition is nearly 30% faster.