detail information

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 supports:

• DVD-ROM : 16x
• CD-ROM : 48x 

Pressed discs:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing Creative Blaster Audigy install CD that is close to 74 minutes long. Below you will see the produced result:

The NEC ND-3540A reached 46.09x and will go up to 48x on larger discs. Let's compare the result in the table below:

The NEC ND-3540A performance was average, reading pressed CD-ROM, and the full Seek Time is a bit high.

* Some drives including the NU HDW-164 will simply execute the seek command without actually moving the pickup.

CD-Recordable Discs:

For this test we made a copy of the original Creative Blaster Audigy install CD. The disc we used was a Verbatim 48X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation. 

Again the NEC ND-3540A performed around average on CD-R's. The Full Seek Time is a bit high.

* Some drives including the NU HDW-164 will simply execute the seek command without actually moving the pickup.

 CD-Rewritable discs:

Again, we made a copy of the original Creative Blaster Audigy install CD; this time we used a Verbatim Ultra Speed (24X) CD-RW disc made by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

As we can see above, the NEC ND-3540 is locked at 40x, reading CD-RW. Let us compare it to other drives below.

The NEC ND-3540A scored around average reading CD-RWs. Again the Full Seek Time is a bit high.

* Some drives including the NU HDW-164 will simply execute the seek command without actually moving the pickup.

Audio - Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the NEC ND-3540A, again we 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 (77:43:45).

The drive is locked at 40x - reading audio discs; let us compare the result with other drives:

The NEC ND-3540A performed around average on the Audio-CD.

* Some drives including the NU HDW-164 will simply execute the seek command without actually moving the pickup.

Below is the results produced by EAC:

 Burst mode

 Secure mode

The drive performed well in burst and slower in secure mode.

Advanced audio - DAE quality test:

Before we move on to testing DVD read speeds, we will take a last audio test, and this time we used the 'Advanced DAE Quality Test" feature in CD-Speed. For this test we used a CD-R DA media from MMORE (Thanks to MMORE (NL) for sending us this media).

The extracting quality is excellent and it should support everything, except reading the Leadin / Leadout.

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 16X.

DVD - DVD-Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with a single and Double 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.

DVD-Video Single Layer

 
DVD-Video Double Layer

As we could see the drive is locked at 8x/7x - reading single layer DVD-Video and double layer DVD-Video. To see how the transfer rate is on a Data DVD we used the 'Half-Life 2" DVD-ROM:

The NEC ND-3540 will reach 16x on DVD-ROM's.

The NEC ND-3540A performed below average reading Single Layer DVD-Video and average on Double Layer DVD-Video.

DVD - DVD+R(W):

For this test we used a Plextor (Taiyo Yuden) 8X DVD+R and a Verbatim 8X DVD+RW with about 4,4Gb of data. Below are the results:

DVD+R

 
DVD+RW

Amazing results, DVD+R at 16x and DVD+RW at 13x. So far the fastest reader on DVD+R/RW - let us see how it will perform on DVD-R/RW.

DVD - DVD-R/RW:

For this test we used a Verbatim 8X DVD-R disc and a Verbatim 6X DVD-RW disc filled with about 4.4Gb of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

 
DVD-RW

 There are minor differences compared to reading the DVD+R/RW discs.

Again the NEC ND-3540A showed an amazing results reading DVD-R/RW.

Overall thoughts:

The NEC ND-3540A is an excellent reader.

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