CR52-M: CDRW ramps up to 32X
by Kristopher Kubicki on September 9, 2003 12:23 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Testing the drive
We used the following configuration to test our CR52-M:Gigabyte GA-7VRX
AMD Athlon MP 2100+
2 x 128 DDR Corsair XMS 2400
Maxtor 80GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache
Windows XP SP1
Using Ahead’s CD Speed 1.02e, we run a battery of read, write and rewrite tests on the drive. Our first test determines CD read speed in normal mode, while the second determines the speed while the turbo 52X mode is enabled. The following read speeds are for a pressed HP System Recovery CD.
Click to enlarge.
Click to enlarge.
As you can see, access times are right on the MSI specification of 90ms. Both modes use CAV mode while reading, which produces fairly good average burn speeds. You may recall CAV stands for constant angular velocity; so, the drive spins at a constant rate while the header moves towards the outside of the CD. Since the linear velocity of the position on the CD increases when the header moves outwards, the data transfer rate eventually obtains the 52X read speed.
We also tested the CR52-M on a variety of CDR, CDRW and DAE media. The following table contains our results.
| Average Transfer | Seek Random | Seek 1/3 | Seek Full | Media Length | |
| Pressed HP System Recovery (Turbo) | 35.80X | 83ms | 90ms | 166ms | 69:18.41 |
| Pressed HP System Recovery (Normal) | 28.52X | 93ms | 87ms | 155ms | 69:18.41 |
| Pressed DAE Global Underground 24 CD2 (Turbo) | 38.41X | N/A | N/A | N/A | 73:20.15 |
| Pressed DAE Global Underground 24 CD2 (Normal) | 29.29X | N/A | N/A | N/A | 73:20.15 |
| Burned PNY 48X CDR Dummy File (Turbo) | 38.95X | 85ms | 91ms | 164ms | 74:00.05 |
| Burned PNY 48X CDR Dummy File (Normal) | 29.40X | 95ms | 91ms | 153ms | 74:00.05 |
| Burned Mitsubishi 32X CDRW Dummy File (Turbo) | 30.64X | 84ms | 94ms | 155ms | 74:00.05 |
| Burned Mitsubishi 32X CDRW Dummy File (Normal) | 30.62X | 85ms | 94ms | 154ms | 74:00.05 |
The MSI CR52-M performed on par consistently. The drive is slightly slower than its Lite-On and ASUS counterparts. Fortunately, seek times are quite low and we had no problems while testing the read portion of the drive.
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Ian@CDRlabs - Monday, September 15, 2003 - link
Kristopher,Why would it be ununsual that I contact you?
I'm not talking about the start/stop times in the read tests. I'm talking about the writing tests.
Nevermind.. I see you have a few Nero screenshots showing the writing times. I didn't see those before.
Ian
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
#9: The "dummy" CDs are the ones created in CD Speed.lan,
while I do commend your criticism, I find it slightly unusual you did email me. In all honesty, I never recorded the start/stop times of the CD Speed tests. I did record the start/stop burning speeds if you would like me to just post those.
Cheers,
Kristopher
Ian@CDRlabs - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
Please add writing times to your writing tests. The average writing speed is not an accurate indicator of how fast a drive is. It can take longer to write leadin/leadout or run media tests.Anonymous User - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
Edit for previous post: I meant Nero CD/DVD Speed's test disc. Sorry.Anonymous User - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
I think that a test should be done using Nero Infotool's test disc so that people can compare results with their own drives. Or is the "dummy file" test made with it?Just a comment: These drives are slightly underrated. I have a Lite-On 52327S and it reads and writes at 53.55x at 82min. I'm sure this would rise slightly with a 99min CDR.
Anonymous User - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
the shorter form factor is a good thing in my opinion, as i have had a couple cases that couldn't have standard length cd-rws mounted in the bottom 5.25" bay as the back of the drive would hit a capacitator on the moboJeff7181 - Friday, September 12, 2003 - link
Two articles a day? Sounds GREAT to me =)I've even had a hard time finding 24X CDRW media... I guess I'm looking in the wrong places because I'm not willing to pay oodles of money for CDRW's when I have a few spindles of CDR media, totaling about 175 CDR's that I didn't pay over $10 for.
With CDR media being SO cheap... is CDRW media really even necessary? Packet writing isn't that great cause you need the packet writing software to read and write to them... and why bother erasing an old scratched CDRW disk when you can pull out a brand new CDR disk that only costs you pennies?
Zepper - Thursday, September 11, 2003 - link
It seems like eveyone is selling Lite Ons these days. And since when is MSI a big wheel in optical? As far as I can tell they have done nothing but sell rebadged LiteOns with slight apperance mods - just like Sony, TDK etc.etc. Does anybody else besides LiteOn and Sanyo/Plextor actually manufacture their own designs any more?.bh.
KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - link
Our good friends Mitsubishi Chemical make 32X. Pretty much the best you can buy but in all honesty, not worth an upgrade from an existing drive. If you were looking into buying a new system, then I would consider the CD52-M.Aga I have a neat optical drive I will post in the next day or two. Our schedule for the next 3 weeks is full =) We might have to start posting 2 articles a day.
Kristopher
AgaBooga - Tuesday, September 9, 2003 - link
I think Anand is getting the Athlon 64 reviews ready. His coloumn in this month's CPU magazine mentioned September 23rd at the end of the article. Other than that, I haven't heard anything from him either.One question though, is there 32X CDRW media available readily? Last I checked, 12x and 16x is used most widely for CDRW use because the 24x and higher cost more to the end consumer.