detail information

Phew, finally all the read tests are done and we could conclude that it's faster at reading all DVD discs but slower at reading all CD discs because of its lower read speed of only 32X. So next up is write tests and out from the specifications we could clearly see that the drive writes CD-R discs at 16X and writes at 4X to both DVD-R and DVD+R discs.

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 discs 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 16X: 

The drive used 5 minutes and 28 seconds to write the disc, this is normal for 16X writespeed.

Most people do not need a faster writer than this, but we would liked if the write speed was 24X like most other new DVD-Writers. But speed is only one thing, let us take a look at the write quality of the Memorex Dual-X.

Write Quality:

We will test CD-R discs from 6 different large CD-R manufacturers. All discs have the same content and are written at 16X. For the quality test we use 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 LTC-48161H drive and scanned the discs at maximum speed which is 48X. A written CD-R disc will always have some C1 errors, C1 errors is 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; a good disc should not contain any C2 errors. After this there is only uncorrectable errors that will make a disc unusable.

Why wait any longer? Below are the obtained results: 

Brand: Packard Bell
Manufacturer: CMC Magnetics
Code: 97m26s66f
Disc Type: CD-R
Recording Layer: Dye Type 6, Short strategy (Phthalocyanine).
Capacity: 79:59.71 (703Mb)
Certified speed: 48X
Write speed: 16X
Write time: 5m:30s
C1 average: 0.621
C2 average: 0.0

These discs seems to work pretty well with this drive, an average C1 error count of 0.621 is very good. 

Brand: MMORE
Manufacturer: Moser Baer India
Code: 97m17s06f
Disc Type: CD-R
Recording Layer: Dye Type 6, Short strategy (Phthalocyanine).
Capacity: 79:59.74 (703Mb)
Certified speed: 32X
Write speed: 16X
Write time: 5m:28s
C1 average: 0.258
C2 average: 0.0

These discs do also work very well with the Memorex Dual-X, a C1 average error count of only 0.258 is very good and even better than the CMC Magnetics produced disc. 

Brand: Verbatim Data Life Plus
Manufacturer: Mitsubishi Chemicals
Code: 97m34s23f
Disc Type: CD-R
Recording Layer: Dye Type 3, Long strategy (Cyanine or AZO).
Capacity: 79:59.73 (703Mb)
Certified speed: 48X
Write speed: 16X
Write time: 5m:31s
C1 average: 0.728
C2 average: 0.0

These discs do also work well with the Memorex Dual-X, a C1 average error count of 0.728 is very good even though it's a bit higher than some of the other tested discs. 

Brand: Fujifilm
Manufacturer: Ritek
Code: 97m15s17f
Disc Type: CD-R
Recording Layer: Dye Type 7, Short strategy (Phthalocyanine).
Capacity: 79:59.70 (703Mb)
Certified speed: 48X
Write speed: 16X
Write time: 5m:27s
C1 average: 0.092
C2 average: 0.0

These discs work extremely well with the Memorex Dual-X, a C1 average error count of 0.092 is very good and few drive/disc combinations could produce such good results. 

Brand: Plextor
Manufacturer: Taiyo Yuden
Code: 97m24s01f
Disc Type: CD-R
Recording Layer: Dye Type 1, Long strategy (Cyanine or AZO).
Capacity: 79:59.72 (703Mb)
Certified speed: 48X
Write speed: 16X
Write time: 5m:27s
C1 average: 0.035
C2 average: 0.0

These discs work extremely well with the Memorex Dual-X, a C1 average error count of 0.035 is the best result we obtained with this drive and it's a fantastic low error count.

But when testing the last brand of CD-R discs we ran into problems:

Brand: Memorex
Manufacturer: Prodisc
Code: 97m32s19f
Disc Type: CD-R
Recording Layer: Dye Type 9, Short strategy (Phthalocyanine).
Capacity: 79:59.72 (703Mb)
Certified speed: 48X
Write speed: 16X

When trying to write these discs this happened:

Yes, the drive returned a power calibration error. Might be just one disc we though and throw in a new disc from the same package:

This time we got a write error instead. Not good.

We opened a new box of Memorex CD-R discs but we still banged the head against the wall as the drive returned the same error messages with all tested discs.

What's up? This is a Memorex drive and then it's not compatible with Memorex CD-R discs? This is not good at all! Thumbs down to Memorex for providing discs that is not compatible with their own drives!

Then we picked another brand of prodisc manufactured discs, this time it was smartbuy that is prodisc owned brand. 

Brand: Smartbuy
Manufacturer: Prodisc
Code: 97m32s19f
Disc Type: CD-R
Recording Layer: Dye Type 9, Short strategy (Phthalocyanine).
Capacity: 79:59.72 (703Mb)
Certified speed: 48X
Write speed: 16X
Write time: 5m:29s
C1 average: 13.174
C2 average: 23.118

We do rarely see such bad results as this one, with an average C1 error count of 13.174 and an average C2 error count of 23.118 we can't do anything else than warn you against buying this CD-R disc brand for this drive.

We had even one more brand of prodisc manufactured discs and here are the results: 

Brand: NoName/Bulk spindle with white printable top.
Manufacturer: Prodisc
Code: 97m32s19f
Disc Type: CD-R
Recording Layer: Dye Type 9, Short strategy (Phthalocyanine).
Capacity: 79:59.72 (703Mb)
Certified speed: 48X
Write speed: 16X
Write time: 5m:29s
C1 average: 0.084
C2 average: 0.0

This time we got a very good result, something that leads us to believe that prodisc have different production lines with different quality. A score of 0.084 average C1 errors is very good and is right up there among the best.

Summary:

With a low writing speed of only 16X it was no surprise that it did perform well with most discs since they are certified for much higher speeds. But be careful with discs manufactured by prodisc as their quality is a hit and miss.

Writing Data DVD-R and DVD+R:

In this test we will measure the time for writing to both DVD-R and DVD+R discs. We used Nero burning Rom to set up a new UDF/ISO compilation containing about 4477Mb of data and started the write process:

DVD+R

DVD-R

Out from these screenshots we could see that it wrote the DVD+R in 14 minutes and 6 seconds, and the DVD-R in 14 minutes and 49 seconds. How this compares to other drives may bee seen in the table below:

The table shows that this drive is a good performer when it comes to writing DVD discs, it was able to beat both drives again, although not by much.

DVD-Write quality tests may be added later as we are investigating the reliability of our results. Yes, there is some measuring issues between different drives which we have to look closer into before posting any results officially. 

Next up is this drives re-writing performance, so head on to next page…