detail information

The specifications of the BTC DRW1108IM state that the drive is able to write CD-R discs at 40x. Let us find out how the drive really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

For our data writing tests, we simply set up a new compilation of 700Mb using Nero Burning ROM software. Writing method used is DAO (Disc At Once), and the disc is set up as a non-multisession disc with 'finalize disc" enabled. The screenshot below shows how long it takes to write a disc at the highest speed. (40x):

The drive used 3 minutes and 24 seconds to write the disc at 24x. Let us see how this compares to other drives; the NU DDW-082 used 3 minutes and 2 seconds for the same writing operation at 40x speed, and the Plextor PX-708A used 2 minutes and 58 seconds at 40x. The reason whey the BTC is slower than the other two drives is that it used more time on closing the disc. Let us take a look at the writing quality of this drive:

Write Quality:

We will test CD-R discs from a total of 11 different CD-R manufacturers. To really measure the write speed, we used the 'create data CD" function in Nero CD-Speed. The discs were written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. For the quality test, we used K-Probe 2 which is a tool developed by a Lite-On Employee. It runs under Windows and works with drives made by Lite-On. Also note that different drives and different reading speeds may affect the results obtained when scanning the discs. We used a Lite-On LTR-52246S drive with firmware 6S0F and scanned the discs at 48X speed.

A written CD-R disc will always have some C1 errors; C1 errors are easily corrected by the drive's error correction capabilities. The next level of errors is C2, while C2 errors could also be corrected by most drive's error correction capabilities; they are not wanted on a good quality disc. A good disc should not contain any C2 errors, and preferably have an average C1 error amount of below 2.0 for the best discs, or at least below 10.0 average for good quality discs. After C2 errors there are only un-correctable errors that will make a disc unusable.

Why wait any longer? Below are the obtained results:

CMC Magnetics is not known for making the best CD-R discs but the BTC DRW1108IM did okay with this media and should not cause you any problems.

This is simply the best result we have ever seen with Moser Baer media, highly recommended.

Another very well written disc, highly recommended.

What could we say? Still exceptionally good! Highly recommended.

Perfect, just like it should be with Taiyo Yuden CD-R media.

While some other writers have problems with these CD-R discs, the BTC DRW1108IM did not have any problems and wrote another perfect disc. Highly recommended.

We have found these Samsung CD-R discs, manufactured by Plasmon, to be of very low quality. And as we could see their C1 error count is a bit higher than for most other discs, but far from worryingly high, and there were no C2 errors. So all in all there should not be any problems in practical use.

Again a perfect result, highly recommended.

Princo is not known for making the best quality discs, but the BTC DRW1108IM wrote them without any problems.

Perfect - just like it should be with these high quality Fujifilm CD-R discs manufactured in Germany. This media is just as good as or better than Taiyo Yuden in our opinion.

While TDK is a well-known brand in larger parts of the world, their own manufactured CD-R discs may not be so well known, as they are mostly only available in Europe. But the BTC DRW1108IM did still write the disc without problems.

Summary:
Impressive! This is among one of the best CD-Writers we have ever used. The only microscopic detail we will put our finger on is that it uses about 10-20 seconds more than other writers for writing the lead out. But overall it gets a fat plus in our book for CD-writing speed and quality.

But after all, it's a DVD-Writer, so head on to next page and read about DVD-Writing performance and DVD media compatibility…