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

Burn Tests CDR Media

We use the following configuration to test our burners: Albatron 865PE Pro II Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz 800FSB 2 x 512 DDR OCZ PC3200 EL Maxtor 80GB 7200RPM 8MB PATA Windows XP SP1 You can check out our previous benchmarks on the MSI DR12A from about a month ago. For this duration of the benchmark, we use the included 1.0A firmware. We first burn the media with the DRU-540A and then use Plextools v2.12 to test C1/C2/CU averages in the same drive. Good burns have low C1/C2 averages and are considered the most readable. We used Ahead Nero's CD-DVD Speed 3.12 for burn and read tests.

Fujifilm CDR

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The disc creation process for the Fujifilm brand CDR completed without a hitch utilizing the CAV method. Towards the end of the burn the drive did top out at about 41x, just as the MSI had done using a Ritek brand CDR.

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The transfer rate test ran just as smoothly topping out at 42x at the end of the disc read.

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The Plextor 712A read the Fujifilm CDR without any errors at an average rate of about 32x.

The media had an enormous number of C1 errors in the first 10 minutes of writing but did smooth out after that.

Imation CDR

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Like Fujifilm, Imation media is one of the higher quality brands of media which performed just as well.

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Again, the Plextor drive had no trouble reading back the Imation CDR.

The Imation media had a very low number of C1 and an even lower number of C2 errors on the disc.