detail information

The specifications of the Lite-On LDW-811S 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 time it takes to write a disc at the highest speed that is 40x:

The drive used 3 minutes and 6 seconds to write the disc at 40x. Let us see how this compares to some other drives; the NEC ND-2500A used 3 minutes and 43 seconds for the same writing operation at 32x speed and the Plextor PX-708A used 2 minutes and 58 seconds at 40x. This makes the Lite-On LDW-811S a few seconds slower than the Plextor PX-708A, but faster than the NEC ND-2500A that only supports 32x write speed. But speed is not everything, quality is even more important, so 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 was written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. For the quality test we used K-Probe that 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-52327S drive with firmware QS53 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 drives error correction capabilities. The next level of errors is C2, while C2 errors could also be corrected by most drives 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 average 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 Lite-On LDW-811S is still able to produce an acceptable result.

This is one of the better results we have been able to get with these discs, highly recommended discs for this drive.

Highly recommended discs! These discs should not cause any problems either.

Not the best result we have had but still very good and highly recommended discs.

Now, where did the superiority of Taiyo Yuden discs go? This is just horrible! We though it was a one time problem but it wasn't; we tried two other drives, two other TY disc brands (Verbatim and plextor) as well as different firmware versions (HS0E, HS0K and HS0P). But the result was awful every time. Two thumbs down to Lite-On for messing up the write quality on TY discs!

While some other writers have problems with these CD-R discs the Lite-On LDW-811S did not have any problems and wrote the disc perfect. Highly recommended.

We have found these Samsung CD-R discs manufactured by Plasmon to be of very low quality, and as we could see the Lite-On LDW-811S also had a few writing problems with these discs. When shopping discs there are other brands to pick over these.

Again a new record, we have never been able to get such good results with these discs before. Highly recommended.

Princo is not known for making the best quality discs, and we did also get a pretty bad result out of these discs. Not recommended.

This is some of the best discs you could possibly buy for use with the Lite-On LDW-811S.

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 Lite-On LDW-811S drive was still able to make an almost perfect result.

Summary:
We did expect to see results almost identical to the Lite-On LDW-411S as the drive is near identical. But to be honest we did get some disappointments, especially with the Taiyo Yuden CD-R discs. But for the most part the results were very good so let us only hope Lite-On is able to put their heads together and figure out what they messed up when making the LDW-811S firmware, as the results was perfect with the LDW-411S.

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