CD-REWRITER

CD-REWRITER

CD-REWRITER:
Speed isn't everything: In the past year, CD-RW drive technology has vaulted over one speed hurdle after another--reducing the time required to write a CD by almost half. The CD-RW drive market is nearing maturity, however, and speed achievements mean less than they once did--consider that the difference in times posted by a 24X drive and a 48X drive when writing a full CD is less than 2 minutes. Factors such as the price, the drive interface, and the software bundle assume greater import--especially since the same internal mechanism often shows up in drives from several different vendors. Key Features CD-R write speed: CD-RW drives use X-ratings to indicate writing and reading speeds, where 1X equals 150 KBps; the ratings listed on the box indicate the drive's maximum speed for reading from or writing to a disc, not its average speed (which may be about 4X to 6X less than the X-rating). Though drives that burn to write-once CD-Rs at up to 48X now reign supreme, models capable of 52X will go on sale later this year. Thereafter, industry experts say, the escalation in CD-R write speeds will slow dramatically--and may stop altogether--due to technological limitations (remember how CD-ROM drives topped out at 56X?) and diminishing returns. After all, burning a full disc now at up to 48X requires about two and a half minutes; ratcheting the write speed up to 52X will shave mere seconds--not minutes--off that time. Buying the fastest drive available today won't break your wallet, and it will make the burn process fly by. We found the first 48X-rated drive we tested, Pacific Digital's Mach 48 CD-RW, being sold for the same price as older, slower 40X drives--which take, on average, 22 percent longer to burn a full disc. CD-RW write speed: For the past 18 months, the speed at which drives write to rewritable CD-RW media has held fairly steady, making only a modest jump from 10X to 12X at the start of the year. In real-world terms, the bump up to 12X means that you can use packet writing to burn 100MB of data to a CD-RW 14 percent faster, on average, than you could with a 10X drive. Expect more punch out of the next increase in rewritable speeds: Drives with 16X and 24X rewrite speeds should be out by the time you read this (although compatible media may be hard to find at first). CD-RW media costs more than plain CD-R media (about $1 apiece versus $0.50 or less for CD-Rs, depending on brand, speed, and quantity), but it's handy for short-term backups, and CD-RW discs are reusable--they're rated for up to 1000 full rewrites. CD-ROM read speed: The fastest drives can read CD-ROMs at up to 48X. However, tests by the PC World Test Center show a far greater variance in the performance of drives rated as 48X readers than we typically see in either CD-R or CD-RW write performance. For example, in our application installation and digital audio extraction tests, drives rated to read CD-ROMs at 48X ranked as high as first and as low as fifteenth overall--behind several drives rated at 40X. Buffer size: CD-RW drives typically come with at least a 2MB buffer. The buffer ensures that data flows to the disc smoothly and without interruption. Before buffer underrun protection schemes such as Burn-Proof and Smart-Burn became prevalent, drives needed to have larger buffers to prevent buffer underruns (and ruined discs) from occurring. Some drives still provide a 4MB or 8MB buffer, but now the role of a large buffer is to minimize how often buffer underrun protection is invoked, and thereby to speed the burn process. Interface: Internal IDE drives are the least-expensive CD-RW drives you can buy, and they're easy to install if you don't mind opening your system. FireWire (IEEE 1394) and USB 2.0 drives both perform similarly to internal IDE models, but FireWire drives tend to cost about $20 to $40 more than USB 2.0 drives, due to the costs of integrating the FireWire controller into the drive. When you use a USB 2.0 drive via a USB 1.1 port, the interface will limit the drive's throughput when writing to CD-R and CD-RW to about 4X, regardless of the drive's internal maximum write speed. A few external drives offer multiple interfaces--some combination of FireWire, USB 2.0, PC Card, and even parallel port--but you'll pay more for one of these than for a standard external drive (for example, LaCie's USB 2.0 and FireWire drive, the 40x12x48x U&I CD-RW, sells for $220; TDK's USB 2.0-based VeloCD 40/12/48 sells for about $185). Software: All drives include CD mastering and packet-writing applications to enable data copying and music CD creation. But some, like Ahead's Nero Burning ROM 5.5, are more powerful than others; and some, like Oak Technology's SimpliCD and Roxio's Easy CD Creator, are easier to use. A handful of vendors include additional software, such as rudimentary image editors or audio jukeboxes (like TDK's Audio MixMaster) for ripping and organizing your MP3s. Yamaha is the only internal-drive vendor that bundles backup software--a boon considering the cost of buying the backup application separately. Mt. Rainier: Drives with Mt. Rainier technology integrate support for writing directly to CD-RW media via the operating system, bypassing the need for third-party packet-writing software such as Roxio DirectCD. For now, only versions of Linux based on the latest Linux kernel support Mt. Rainier. Microsoft says that it will implement the spec in the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, due sometime next year. Other advantages to Mt. Rainier include the format's support for disc formatting on the fly and its improved defect management to help overcome errors on a disc. Unfortunately, discs written using Mt. Rainier won't be backward-compatible with older operating systems such as Windows 98 or Windows XP, so you'll still need third-party software like DirectCD 5.2 to read (or write to) the discs. Some drives already claim to support Mt. Rainier, but in many cases you'll need to upgrade the firmware or packet-writing software (or both) to get full support. As CD-RW drive hardware becomes more and more commodified, you can't go wrong by buying the fastest drive for the money. If you plan to rip audio CDs to MP3s, though, get a drive that includes audio-specific software, such as the TDK VeloCD 40/12/48. And check for Mt. Rainier support if you use Linux or plan to upgrade to the next version of Windows. Several models, including our number one drive, Pacific Digital's Mach 48 CD-RW.
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