Writing Quality And Media Compatibility, Continued
We deactivated Smartburn for the next set of measurements. All media is rated at 40x.
| Tested MediaCDR | Size | Certified Speed | Write Speed | Strategy | Manuf | Good Sectors | Damag-ed Sectors | Unread-able Sectors | Write Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Octron | 700 MB | 24X | 40X | Short | Ritek Co. | 99.27% | 0.73% | 0.00% | 03:13 |
| Verbatim | 700 MB | 24X | 40X | Long | Mitsubishi Chemicals Corp. | 63.26% | 30.17% | 6,58% | 03:09 |
| Tevion | 700 MB | 32X | 40X | Short | Ricoh Company Ltd. | 99.90% | 0.10% | 0.00% | 03:09 |
| TDK | 700 MB | 40X | 40X | Short | Ritek Co. | 100.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 03:10 |
| Traxdata | 700 MB | 48X | 40X | Long | Disc ID not allowed | 99.48% | 0.52% | 0.00% | 03:07 |
| Traxdata | 700 MB | 40x | 40X | Short | Ritek Co. | 100.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 03:09 |
The results show that Smartburn is certainly worth having. The figures for the Verbatim CD make its benefits particularly clear. Although you can shave 10 seconds off the overall writing time by switching Smartburn off, you will greatly increase the chances of producing coasters if you do so. The diagram shows why.
Data corruption. The yellow, vertical lines indicate defective sectors; red lines show unreadable areas.
As you can see, the drive has a real problem reading the data. Nearly 7% of the sectors are so badly corrupted that they are completely unreadable.
Here is a summary of our tests using three different RW media.
| Tested MediaCDRW | Size | Certified Speed | Write Speed | Strategy | Manu. | Good Sectors | Damag-ed Sectors | Unread-able Sectors | Write Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fuji | 650 MB | 10X | 12X10x | Phase change | Disc ID not allowed | 86.83%61.75% | 13.05%38.14% | 0.11%0.11% | 06:4908:04 |
| LiteOn | 650 MB | 12X | 12x10x | Phase change | NAN-YA Plastics Corp. | 98.30%93.64% | 1.59%6.24% | 0.11%0.11% | 06:5408:13 |
| Ricoh | 650 MB | 10x | 12x10x | Phase change | Disc ID not allowed | 96.71%98.41% | 3.18%1.48% | 0.11%0.11% | 06:5508:06 |
FrisbyII Writing Quality: TAO mode
It looks like burning RWs isn't really the FrisbyII's favorite job, because we were unable to burn data that was entirely free of errors. When using CD-RWs, we would therefore recommend that you limit the writing speed strictly to the maximum speed specified for your media. Otherwise you run the risk of creating a RW disc with an unacceptable number of errors. The drive shows the interesting effect (and it is not alone here) that the last sectors of the TAO data CD-RW are unreadable. We found the same thing with data CD-Rs in TAO mode.
Using DAO mode, we got the following results:
| Tested MediaCDRW | Size | Certified Speed | Write Speed | Strategy | Manu. | Good Sectors | Damag-ed Sectors | Unread-able Sectors | Write Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fuji | 650 MB | 10X | 12X10X | Phase change | Disc ID not allowed | 3.52%98.18% | 96.48%1.82% | 0.00%0.00% | 06:4308:00 |
| LiteOn | 650 MB | 12X | 12x10X | Phase change | Disc ID not allowed | 99.21%93.08% | 0.79%6.92% | 0.00%0.00% | 06:4408:01 |
| Ricoh | 650 MB | 10x | 12X10X | Phase change | Mitsubishi Chemicals Corp. | 99.43%98.41% | 0.57%1.59% | 0.00%0.00% | 06:4408:01 |
FrisbyII Write Quality: DAO mode
In DAO mode, too, it is advisable not to exceed the writing speed specified for the media, since doing so will increase the error rate and make it difficult for other drives to read the burned disc.