Lite-On 40/12/48X CD-RW
detail information
| Posted by | Robin |
| Posted on | 23/06/02 16:00 |
| Number of views | 11058 |
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The specifications
Here are the specifications of this drive as listed at Lite-On's page:
Features
- 40X (Zone-CLV) Record, 12X (CLV) Re-Write & 48X (CAV) Read technology.
- E-IDE Interface, support up to Ultra-DMA mode 2.
- Innovated SMART-BURN® technology to automatically check media quality and set limit to burning speed to ensure successful writing sessions & data retainability (can be turned off)
- Buffer underrun error free & automatically adjust writing strategy plus running OPC to meet various burning condition. (always active)
- Innovated SMART-X technology, support up to 48X speed Digital Audio Extration (DAE) and high speed VCD data extraction
- Supporting Mt. Rainier ; Plug & Play ; Emergency manual eject
- Supporting Fixed & Variable Packet, TAO, SAO, DAO, Raw Mode, Over-Burn.
- Read/Write CD, CD-R, CD-RW Disc up to 99min. (Orange Book Part 2,3)
- Easy-Tray® Design for Both Horizontally & Vertically Use
- Gear-Driven tray disc-loading mechaniasm to Improve reliability & life, not any belt-loose belt-broken issue.
- VAS® Vibration Absorber System Mechanisam to reduce vibration & noise during read & write
- Use Flash ROM supports internet firmware upgrade
- Speed: Recording 40X(6000KB/sec) Z-CLV (20X, 24X@8min, 32X@28min, 40X@53min) Re-writing 12X High-Speed (1800KB/sec) CLV Reading 48Xmax (7200KB/sec) CAV (20X~48X)
- Interface: ATAPI-E/IDE, support up to Ultra-DMA Mode2, 33.3MB/sec
- Access Time: 80ms (typical)
- Buffer Memory Size: 2MB
- System Requirement: CPU Pentium 166MHz above , Memory 128B Required ; HDD must have access time < 20ms, with a minimum of 100MBytes Free space
- Disc Format: CD/CD-R/CD-RW formats both 8cm & 12cm discs (up to 99 min)
- Operating System: DOS 6.xx, Windows 95/98/NT/XP/2000/ME, OS2 Warp, Mt.Rainier
- MTBF: 70'000 Power On Hours with 25% Duty
- Audio: S/N ≧ 75dB Earphone ≧ 0.3Vrms @ 1KHz
- Temperature & Humidity: Operating: 5C to 50C ; RH: 15% to 80% , Non-Condensing Non-Operating: -40C to 60C ; RH: 15% to 90% , Non-Condensing
- Dimension: WxHxD: 145.8 x 41.3 x 190.0mm Weight: 1.0Kg
- Power Requirement: DC + 5 V (+/- 5%, 100mVpp ripple) 0.9 A (max), 0.1 A (min) DC +12 V (+/- 10%, 200mVpp ripple) 1.5 A (max), 0.1 A (min)
Nero Info tool 1.01:
Let us see what Nero Info tool is detecting the drive as being able to do:
Nero Info tool, LTR-40125S firmware ZS0A. As we could see the drive does not support Mount Rainier, something that it should support according to the specifications.
Only two differences here (beside firmware version), Now it's reported as having only 1984Kb buffer, this is because some of the buffer memory is now used for internal instructions and only the usable amount of buffer memory is reported. We saw the same thing in our TEAC CD-W540E review. And now it's also reported as supporting Mount Rainier
But when overclocked to a LTR-48125W then?
Only difference is that the buffer is back at 2Mb and it supports 48X writing now.
Now let us check the properties in Nero Burning Rom:
Here is the results for ZS0A firmware, same results as with Nero info tool, no support for Mount Rainier. But we could see that it's possible to switch off SMART-BURN to make it possible to write all discs at 40X. Although we do not recommend it as it may give unreadable discs and failed writes.
And here is for ZS0J, now we could see that Mount Rainier is supported. And also the decreased buffer size is shown.
Again it's possible to switch off SMART-BURN, which we do not recommend.
Let us include a shot from the LTR-48125W as well:
Nothing much to add, as in Nero info tool we se that the buffer is back at 2048Kb and it now supports 48X Writing.
The features of this drive described:
Smart Monitoring & Adapting Recording Technology for BURNing:This is how Lite-On explains it:
'Users always want to successfully burn a disc with a higher speed in CD-RW drive. You may know, there are so many brands of CD-R /CD-RW media in the market with irregular quality & still being cost down in the price war.
LITE-ON IT try hard to collect various kinds of media to come out the dedicated optimised writing strategy parameters plus the outstanding running Optimum Power Calibration (OPC) function to provide you the best burning quality.
If your CD-R/CD-RW media quality is really poor enough or working environment is too hot to induce the Laser Power over margin, the CD-RW drive detected, the burning speed will be forced to decrease to get more reliable Laser working power to secure the life of CD-RW drive & burning quality.
Buffer-underrun errors is no longer an issue either, SMART-BURN also allow the drive to be suspended during writing, then continue to burn from last point when enough data get in the buffer.
SMART-BURN features:
- Buffer Under Run Error Free
- Running Optimum Power Calibration
- Automatic Writing Strategy & Burning Parameters
- Automatically decrease burning speed when Laser power over margin due to poor media quality or high temperature."
Here is a shot showing how the SMART-BURN technology works.
Disabling SMART-BURN is possible:
With Lite-On LTR-40125S and newer drives it is possible to disable the SMART-BURN technology in Nero, here is a shot from Nero:
SMART-BURN enabled, when you tries to un-tick it, Nero shows this dialogue:
This is just a warning message so you should know that disabling SMART-BURN is not a good idea.
And now SMART-BURN is disabled. Now the drive will always try to write at the speed you select. But the drive is still running continuous quality checks, which means that it may still lower the write speed if the media can't handle the speed. In other words: Disabling SMART-BURN is disabling the media table that is in the firmware of the drive, but the write speed may still be lowered if it get write problems due to media defect and low quality media.
Nero will always inform you if SMART-BURN is disabled while you are writing:
This warning will be shown every time you write a disc with SMART-BURN disabled.
It is also possible to disable SMART-BURN in CD-Mate:
Go to the 'File" menu and then choose 'Properties". The properties window will open then go to the 'Speed" tab:
Here is a checkbox for enabling and disabling SMART-BURN. The good thing is that this works with the LTR-24103S, LTR-32123S, LTR-32125W, and all newer drives. But in Nero disabling SMART-BURN for these three drives is not possible.
Smart Monitoring & Adjusting Read-speed Technology for eXtractionHere is how Lite-On explain it:
'SMART-X is the abbreviation of Smart Monitoring & Adjusting Read-speed Technology for eXtraction, which is LITE-ON innovated technology after being verified & improved for a long period before get into mass production.
People ask" What's the DAE speed?" 'What's VCD play speed of the drive?" People want to know this to choose party drive. As you know, removable optical media is so open & unable to control the media quality.
Drive need to burn a disc with
It's more difficult for drive to rip the Audio & VCD disc than a data disc due to there are only 2 levels error correction for Audio & VCD disc but data disc got 3. For limited un-recoverable error data can be fixed by estimation & calculation due to it's only for music & movie applications. These tolerance ripped data are acceptable & can not be detected by human eyes & ear during playback because there is no pop-noise, interrupt or mosaic on the screen. Of course zero error is preferable for zero tolerance.
SMART-X technology is that the drive will rip the music/VCD data as fast as possible with less error, even on a poor quality media (like dirty, scratched), the drive estimates if the ripped data will result in audio noise, interrupt or mosaic on screen, the rip speed can be reduced to get more correctable data. SMART-X provide you with as fast rip speed as possible, on the other hand, if you just want to listen music or watch movie directly, it's not necessary for the drive to keep high speed to read data. It will work under lower speed automatically to get better playability & lower acoustic, so smart!"
A shot illustrating the SMART-X technology.
Mount Rainier:
As Nero Burning ROM and Nero Info Tool reports the Lite-On LTR-40125S with firmware ZS0J supports the Mount Rainier industry standard. We'll test the drive's Mt. Rainier abilities later on in this review. Here's a small introduction of the CD-MRW format. Click on the Mt. Rainier logo to read our article on the Mt. Rainier format:
"...Mount Rainier enables native OS support of data storage on CD-RW. This makes the technology far easier to use and allows the replacement of the floppy. This is done by having defect management in the drive, by making the drive 2k addressable, by using background formatting, and by standardizing both command set and physical layout. The new standard is promoted by Compaq, Microsoft, Philips, and Sony and is supported by over 40 industry leaders: OS vendors, PC-OEM's, ISV's, chip makers, and media makers.The purpose of the proposal made by the Mount Rainier group is to make CD-RW easier to use for data storage and interchange. The changes proposed will enable the operating system support of dragging and dropping data to CD-RW discs. Formatting delays will also be eliminated and the use will be comparable to using a hard disk or a floppy..."
But firmware versions up to version ZS0A do not support Mount Rainier, maybe they got forced by Plextors early 40X writer release and decided to add Mount Rainier support with a later firmware version. We think it was wrong to advertise it as Mount Rainier capable when it in fact was not out of the box. Thankfully firmware ZS0J added Mount Rainier support.
Write technology used:
The specifications states that the drive supports Zone-CLV writing technology, let us verify this by using Nero CD-Speed:
The green line indicates the write speed.
The yellow line indicates the rotation speed (rpm) that the disc have.
Here we could se the Zone-CLV(Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) write speed of the Lite-On LTR-40125S drive with ZS0A firmware.
- Zone 1: It starts writing at 20X from the beginning.
- Zone 2: Then at the 4 minute mark it shifts speed to 24X
- Zone 3: Then it shifts to 32X at the 24 minute mark
Zone 4: And finally at the 50 minute mark it shifts to 40X and continues at 40X for the rest of the disc.
The green line indicates the write speed.
The yellow line indicates the rotation speed (rpm) that the disc have.Here we could se the P-CAV (Partial-Constant Angular Velocity) speed of the Lite-On LTR-40125S drive with ZS0J firmware.
Yes with firmware version ZS0J P-CAV writing technology is added. The average speed is now a bit higher at 31,73X. But when overclocked to an LTR-48125W then? Let us take a look on how it performs then….
The green line indicates the write speed.
The yellow line indicates the rotation speed (rpm) that the disc have.As we could se the drive uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) writing technology to reach 48X write speed. The drive starts at an impressive speed of 22,35X and ending at 49,21X giving an average speed of 37,43X. Definitively not bad but let us now compare this result with other 40X writers:
As we could se the Plextor is the slowest drive while the Lite-On LTR-48125W have the highest average write speed, this is since it's the only 48X writer. Out of the 40X writers the Lite-On LTR-40125S with ZS0J firmware is the fastest writer, but you may notice that it starts at only 19X with the ZS0J firmware, if it had still started at 20X and used P-CAV write technology it would have been a real killer drive!
'Gear-Driven tray disc-loading mechaniasm to Improve reliability & life, not any belt-loose belt-broken issue."
Here we could clearly se the gears that drives the tray
This is stated in the specifications of the drive, but is it worth anything? Some of you may have noticed that the trays on Lite-On drives is noisier than some other drives. If you had looked closer you would probably seen that the tray was driven by a belt on the quieter drive while the tray on the Lite-On is driven by gears. Gears makes more noise but lasts longer, this is why Lite-On picked gears instead of belts. And we would rather have a drive that have a bit noisy tray and lasts longer than a drive with a quiet tray that lasts shorter.
Lite-On SMART-BURN media checker program:
Lite-On have released a program that you may use to check what speed your media supports with Lite-On 32X, 40X and 48X drives. You may download the program here.
This program works with many different CD-RW drives, not only Lite-On. What it will tell you?
- The disc type and DYE material type.
- ATIP
- Disc capacity
- Disc Manufacturer
- SMART-BURN speed limit for 32X, 40X or 48X (depending on which version of the program you downloaded) Lite-On CD-Writers.
This program is very useful to determine if the 100 empty discs you bought not long ago will work at full speed with a 32X or 40X Lite-On drive before you buy the drive, as this program will work with other drives than Lite-On.
Summary:
We can only complain about the buffer size which we would prefer larger. Also we think it was a bad move to advertise the drive as Mount Rainier capable out of the box, which it was not but required a firmware upgrade to be Mount Rainier capable. The new firmware ZS0J for LTR-40125S adds P-CAV writing technology which gives a higher average writing speed which is also nice. And the media checker may be useful in some cases.
But enough, let us start doing some real tests, continue to data reaingd tests at the next page…
Package contentWant to submit your own review? Click here
Posted by MP|3 on Thursday 27 June 2002 03:10
Complete review uploaded! Have fun with this great review 
Posted by OC-Freak on Thursday 27 June 2002 21:52
PLEASE comment this review. Over 5000 views and no comments?
Both positive and negative comments wanted. Quetions welcomed as well.
Both positive and negative comments wanted. Quetions welcomed as well.
Great review, already own the drive, wanted to see where you had it rated. Speed is great, even though I think its not as loud as listed, but other than that and its boring looks, this drive rocks! Good tests, indepth and professional, keep up the good work!
Mike
Mike
Posted by ExSport on Saturday 29 June 2002 01:59
Very good review. But I don't understand why Lite-on has only 9.5 and Teac 10. In 90% of tests Liteon was the best and TEAC was second. LITEON has best price,speed,game backup,and so on).I think it's minimally the same as TEAC, maybe better. I have LITE-ON, I know what I say.
If you want more comments how about fixing the pull down menu code so it works in netscape6/mozilla/opera so people can create a login, or better still allow anonymous posting.
Great review, very thorough.
I must stress that the drive is ugly looking and the loader try is very loud and cheap feeling. I prefer the LG 40X over the Lite-On 40x because of this although technically they both perform well.
Great review, very thorough.
I must stress that the drive is ugly looking and the loader try is very loud and cheap feeling. I prefer the LG 40X over the Lite-On 40x because of this although technically they both perform well.
Posted by Fish3669 on Saturday 29 June 2002 22:09
I thought the review covered the drive very well, as do the other reviews here. I already have this drive and I like it :7
Posted by cj2304 on Sunday 07 July 2002 12:09
Good, indepth & informative review. Well done! I have this drive myself and can't fault it.
Fantastic review. I will have to read your reviews about other drives as well. I like the speed and performance of this drive, but there was one aspect which seemed unclear. These discs that are written with SmartBurn, shouldn't they be completely free of all bad sectors or damaged sectors? I can understand that some CD-R's are crap, but I would think that the Smart-Burn would be able to lower the speed to the point where one could expect 100% perfect burns. I have an old Plextor 8X, and am looking to upgrade, these fast burners are great, but what I still want is 100% perfect recording, even if the drive drops to 24X writing, I would expect that if the media is good enough (certified 24X), it would always write perfectly.
I want to check the rest of your reviews to see which drive writes perfectly every single time, whenever it's "active-media detection" technology is engaged.
I want to check the rest of your reviews to see which drive writes perfectly every single time, whenever it's "active-media detection" technology is engaged.
Great review. I went right out and bought one. What is the difference between thew S and W models? Do you lose anything?
Australian PC User has reviewed the 40125W the "best buy". They found it both cheap and reliable. I checked with the elby CloneCD 4 web site (http://elby.ch/english/products/clone_cd/writers/l.html#liteon) and it says it supports DAO96.
So there you go. Looks like this will be the first CD-burner for this newbie. :4
So there you go. Looks like this will be the first CD-burner for this newbie. :4
Great review. I was trying to decide whether to get the Asus 4816A or the Lite-On 40125S after my Acer 4x4x32 finally died :4. Thanks for making my mind up 
I'm going to buy the Lite-On this week.
I'm going to buy the Lite-On this week.Posted by MythosGR on Tuesday 03 September 2002 13:55
Great review as always. But I had the teac in my mind till now and Im more confused cause of the score you gave both!
first thang first...CD Freaks!? mega indepth and wicked review you've got here! LTR-40125S IS THE KING!!! it's a supurb burning machine! i bought the drive five days before reading the review, mainly cuz a friend told me that it can be overclocked. on the first day i got it, i burned more than 20 perfect cds consecutively. i very much enjoy it's lightning speed. i believe that your review should give it 9.9 (cuz nothing is perfect in the world) for the time being as there will be more great drives in the near future, and teac should only get 9 outta 10. i'm not being bias or anything..as i have never used teac before, but the review clearly speaks for itself, that the performance of liteon surpassed teac. the best part is flashable firmware enabling anyone to overclock it and still running rock solid. sometimes, overclocking isn't all that bad cuz it can show what a hardward is capable of. for me the strongest factor which makes liteon superior to other brands is "value of money". it's not the cheapest rw in town, but it surely has one of the lowest caparable price on today's market. especially when overclocked it will make 40125S the cheapest 48X drive available..so worthy you can even buy a spare in case you wreck the first one. the noise the tray makes and the plainess and dullness of the front to me are bearable. i simply just luv everything about my 40125S. LITEON RULES MAN!!!
gr8 review. made me buy the Liteon.
Please explain on the possiblity to use a x48 firmware on this machine.
although not legal/voids warranty / with risks, is it simple to do? possible?
Any elaboration is welcomed. Thanks.
Please explain on the possiblity to use a x48 firmware on this machine.
although not legal/voids warranty / with risks, is it simple to do? possible?
Any elaboration is welcomed. Thanks.
Posted by theunbeatable on Friday 06 December 2002 23:31
For better support on copy-protected cd's you could use the newest firmware ZS0P. So makes that a 10 out of 10 
Posted by megod on Tuesday 10 December 2002 06:32
Just did a Quick test burning a Simulated 699mb file 588 solid Win RAR File & a 111mb Video file on a 16x Certified Go Tech "Cheap shit media",
LTR-48125w Safeburn off 48x "2.43min"
LTR-48125w Safeburn on 40x "3.09min"
Yamaha CRW3200e Write speed Off 24x "3.52min"
Yamaha CRW3200e Write speed On 24x "3.53min"
I must say I am Impressed with the LiteOn.
Cheers
megod:9
LTR-48125w Safeburn off 48x "2.43min"
LTR-48125w Safeburn on 40x "3.09min"
Yamaha CRW3200e Write speed Off 24x "3.52min"
Yamaha CRW3200e Write speed On 24x "3.53min"
I must say I am Impressed with the LiteOn.
Cheers
megod:9
I've got this LTR-48125S. Whenever overburning is involved, any speed higher than 16x will be successful, but Scandisc shows Unreadable sectors! How could the reviewer managed to get a fully readable burn on a 99min CDR with 48X?!?! This drive must be something!
Besides, my drive shows success on overburning test using this CD Speed, even @ 99min using an 80min CD-R
Brand: Arita
Manuf: RiTEK
Besides, my drive shows success on overburning test using this CD Speed, even @ 99min using an 80min CD-R
Brand: Arita
Manuf: RiTEK
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