Is there a way to tell how fast a CD-Rom drive is if it doesnt say on the front (it doesnt say 42x or 56x or anything)

There are several ways you can do it.

First you can try PCWizard:

<A HREF="http://www.cpuid.com/pcw.php#download" target="_new">http://www.cpuid.com/pcw.php#download</A>

It should be able to tell you the max reading speed.


Second you could try benchmarking it. Remeber that just becuase one CD drive says 52x doesn't mean that it is faster than a 48x. These are maximum speeds, not actual substained read speeds.

I used a program quite a while back, called gpbenchcd. PcWizard and others also include a tool to do this. A couple of years ago I tested my 52x Sony CD-Rom drive, against my HP CD-Writter (32x Read Speed). Much to my suprise the HP Cd-Writter actually could continously read 2x faster than the 52x.

Also you could check the FCC ID tag online, may give you an ideal, if it isn't installed.

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