CR52-M: CDRW ramps up to 32X
by Kristopher Kubicki on September 9, 2003 12:23 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Final Thoughts
MSI did a few things differently with this drive. The Mini form factor and the 52X speed throttle have not yet shown up in any other optical products that we are reviewing. Fortunately, MSI did not sacrifice performance either. 32X RW drives have been available for a little over a month now, but as they hit the mainstream market full force, MSI will be one of the more aggressive leaders in performance and price. The Lite-On LTR-52327S and OptoRite CW5201 are both priced within a dollar of the CR52-M. However, the Lite-On unit becomes the only alternative if you need Mount Rainer support. Most online vendors are carrying the CR52-M for about $42 shipped.Is CDRW still worth pursuing? At $40, one has to imagine that all new systems should at least include a 52X burner, like the CR52-M. Unfortunately, MSI is heavily invested in the CDRW market and has not diversified into the DVDR sector yet. Although one can hardly call it a loss, Mitsumi (CR-485GTE) has developed and is selling 54X read and write drives (with 32X rewrite) at the time of this publication. Of course, even if MSI begins to loose its grip on the CD storage industry, the real question that has to be asked is how ready are they for the next generation of optical products? Stay tuned for our next optical storage reviews as we line up more DVDR drives than you can shake a stick at!
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
13 Comments
View All Comments
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.