Serious Burn: Copying CDs In Just 3 Minutes

TDK CDRW 241040X: Copying CDs In About 3 Minutes

The front-runner: The TDK burns CDs at a speed of 24x, but at a price - it costs $213.

Contents of the TDK package - a manual, a CD pen and a cable.

The TDK burns normal CD-ROMs with 500 MB to 550 MB capacity in just under 3 minutes! The CDRW 241040X re-created our oversize 705 MB test image in 4 minutes, 8 seconds. There is an internal restriction when reading audio CDs (DAE): in the test, the TDK read our music CD at a maximum speed of 20x. But the error correction of the drive works flawlessly, making the drive the only test subject to reach a maximum read speed of 38.48x (5772 kB/s). The built-in write cache (2 MB) is way too small for us. At a maximum write speed of 24x (3.6 MB/s) the write cache is empty after half a second - provided that the data flow stalls. TDK is the only device in the test group that manages to read the data flow continuously at an increasing transfer rate. Even so, the data transfer rate in the outer ranges of the test CD is around 5,772 kB/s (38.48x speed). This fact alone points to perfect error correction in comparison to the other models, which showed problems in reading the outer range of the test CD.

The access times of the TDK burner are quite fast, even though full seek took 258 ms to complete in the test. By and large, the TDK meets the demands of advanced users who want to copy all types of CDs. However, special blank CDs are recommended for writing at 24x speed. Media from the discount store around the corner can only be processed at 12x maximum burn speed - but if the burn speed is set too high, the CDRW 241040X will automatically drop back to a lower mode. Such a range of functions has its price: at just over $ 200, the TDK is the most expensive device of those tested.

Also included in the TDK package.

Setting an example: The transfer rate increases with the radius of the CD. There are no drops in the data transfer rate.