Sony DRU-540A: Sony's Answer to the 12x Call

Features

Since the circuitry/chipsets of the DRU-540A are the same as the DR12A we assumed the features would also be quite similar amongst the two drives. We scanned the 540A using Nero's InfoTool to see what the drive offered and found the following...

From the InfoTool results the drives seem to be identical, so far...

Click to enlarge.

We scanned the DRU-540A in DVD Info Pro to get a better look at the drives overall features. It seems that though the circuitry looks to be the same on both the Sony and MSI drives, the Sony does not have the HD-Burn features the MSI carries or, Plextor's flavor of HD-Burn, the GigaRec feature.

The Plextor PX-712A also featured support for the Philips Mt. Rainier standard which allows drag & drop writing to RW discs.

Sony DRU-540A 12x DVD-/+RW Drive
Interface	PATA
CD Write Speed	40X CAV, 32X PCAV, 24X PCAV 16X, 8X, 4X
CD Rewrite Speed	24X PCAV 16X, 12X, 8X, 4X
CD Read Speed	40X MAX (CAV)
DVD-R Write Speed	8X (Z-CLV) 4X, 2X, 1X
DVD-RW Rewrite Speed	4X, 2X, 1X (CLV)
DVD+R Write Speed	12X PCAV, 8X PCAV 4X, 2.4X
DVD+RW Rewrite Speed	4X, 2.4X (CLV)
DVD-RAM Write Speed	N/A
DVD Read Speed	12X MAX (CAV)
Supported Modes	DAO / DAO-RAW 16 & 96 TAO SAO / RAW SAO, RAW SAO 16 & 96 Packet Write Multi-Session
Supported Formats	DVD+R (DAO, incremental, seq) DVD+RW (random) DVD-R (DAO, incremental, seq) DVD-RW (restricted overwrite) CD-R, CD-RW, CD-ROM, CD-DA, Mixed Mode, CD Extra Photo CD, CD Text, Bootable CD, UDF
Access Time	CD: 130ms DVD: 160ms
Buffer	2MB