detail information

Reading performance:

For these tests we will use Nero CD/DVD-Speed to read various CD and DVD's, including audio discs and DVD-media. As already mentioned in the introduction this drive sports a specified read speed of 12X for DVD's and 40X for CD's. Many drives in its class supports only 32X reading and thus the Lite-On have an advantage over these.

Pressed discs:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing PlexTools v1.08 that is exactly 74 minutes long. Below you will see the produced result:

The drive reached its rated speed of 40X at the end and the average read speed is 30.66X. We compare it to other DVD-Writers in the table found below:

It is the fastest drive in its generation, and the seek times is good as well. It's only beaten by the Plextor PX-708A which is a next generation drive.

CD-Recordable Discs:

For this test we made a copy of the original PlexTools v1.08 CD. The disc we used was a Verbatim 48X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals corporation.

Nothing changes here and the result is about identical to reading the pressed disc. The usual comparison table is found below.

We have nothing more to add as it places about identical in this test as in the pressed disc test. We can't complain as it reaches its specified speeds.

CD-ReWritable discs:

Again we made a copy of the original PlexTools v1.08 disc, this time we used a Verbatim High Speed (10X) CD-RW disc made by Mitsubishi Chemicals corporation.

The drive is locked at 32X reading speed for CD-RW discs; look below to see how this compares to other drives:

Actually it is only able to beat the LG GSA-4040B, but still the seek times is acceptable.

Audio - Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the Lite-On LDW-411S we again used Nero CD/DVD-Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is slightly larger than the disc used for the other tests, to be exact it's about 78 minutes long (77:56:58).

The drive read the disc perfectly at 40X speed; look below to see how this compares to other drives.

Again it was able to outperform all drives of the same generation, only lagging behind the next generation drive; the Plextor PX-708A. Seek times is still good.

Below is the results produced by EAC:

Burst mode

Secure mode

The drive performed as expected in the burst mode test and got an average speed of 27.3x, but in the secure mode test it failed to impress us since the average speed is only 9.5x.

Advanced audio - DAE quality test:

Before we move on to testing DVD read speeds we will take a last audio test, this time we used the 'Advanced DAE Quality Test" feature in CD-Speed.

The drive gave back excellent scores. It supports everything as well as reading audio fast and error free.

DVD reading performance:

Again we will use Nero CD-Speed to measure the reading performance, this time for various types of DVD discs. The drive should read pressed single layer DVD-discs at 12X, pressed dual layer discs at 8X and recordable DVD discs at 6X according to the specifications.

DVD - DVD-Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with a single and dual layered DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it's useful to be able to read the discs at higher speeds if you're going to extract (rip) the content of the disc to your hard drive. Notice: Even if some of these discs contains DVD-Video they are identified as DVD-ROM discs for a reason or another, it's a disc issue and not a drive issue, we did several tests and this do not seem to affect the results of the tests in any way.

We can't complain as the drive reached its rated speed of 12X on the single layer disc. The dual layer disc was read at 8X Max speed. How this compares to other drives is found in the table below:

*Notice that newest version of CD-speed actually reports the highest speed as the end reading speed for the dual layer disc.

The drive performed very well in this test and was the winner except for the single layer disc where the Memorex Dual-X marginally beats it.

DVD - DVD+R(W):

For this test we used a Ritek 4X DVD+R and a Memorex 2.4X DVD+RW with about 4,4Gb of data. Below are the results:

As the specifications states the drive reads DVD-R and DVD-Rw discs at 6X only, how this compares to the competitors is found below:

It came out slower than the LG and plextor PX-708A due to their higher read speed of 8X, but beat the rest.

DVD - DVD-R/RW:

For this test we used a Taiyo Yuden 4X DVD-R disc and a Ritek 1X DVD-RW disc filled with about 4,4Gb of data. Our test results are found below:

As we could see out from these graphs, the drive performed nearly the same with DVD-R/RW discs as with DVD+R/RW discs. Below is a comparison table:

Nothing changes as it is still beaten by the same two drives, but beats the rest.

To sum up the reading performance: Quite good and does what the specifications states plus a bit more.

But now it's time to head on to a more interesting part: Writing CD-R discs…

Features and bundle

CD-Writing performance