detail information

Let's check out the drive's specifications as mentioned on the Plextor Europe website and as detected with additional software like Nero InfoTool :

Drive Specifications:

Overall we can see that the Plextor PX-W4012S drive supports the same features as found on the IDE PX-W4012TA and PX-W4824TA drives. The drive supports all recording formats and of course offers the same Plextor technologies such as VariRec and PoweRec which we'll get back to later. Let's give you a screenshot of Nero InfoTool first and the detected features of this latest SCSI Plextor drive:

From the screenshot you can see that Nero InfoTool verifies the information we already listed. The most interesting thing is that InfoTool reports that the drive supports the Mount Rainier format while, at the time of writing this review, the Plextor Europe website lists the drive as 'Mount Rainier Ready' only (which would mean that a future firmware upgrade will enable Mount Rainier support). According to Plextor there was an error on the website and the SCSI PlexWriter does indeed support the Mount Rainier format. Now let's take a closer look at some of the supported features and technologies:

Buffer (Underrun Protection):

The SCSI PlexWriter, like most Plextor writers, uses BURN-Proof (Buffer UnderRuN-Proof) to prevent buffer underruns. When the buffer of the drive falls beneath 10% of its maximum capacity, the recorder will stop recording as of a specific location on the CD. The recorder then continues attempting to receive data from the PC to refill the buffer. In the meantime, the BURN-Proof circuit determines where the last successful sector was written.

Using the location of the last successful sector, the BURN-Proof circuit will position the Optical Pickup. As soon as the buffer has been refilled, the CD Recorder will start recording again. Like mentioned before in the drive specifications, the Plextor drive has a 4 MB buffer on board as you can also see in the screenshot below of the drive's detected features with Nero Burning Rom:

Nero Burning Rom confirms the 4 MB buffer and as you can see Nero also confirms the Mount Rainier support. Here's some more information on this 'new' packet writing format:

Mount Rainier:

The Plextor PX-W4824TA drive was Plextor's first CD-recorder to support the Mount Rainier format and their latest SCSI drive is no exception. 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..."

PoweRec Technology:

The Plextor PX-W4012S drive has the same features as found on all new Plextor drives. These features include quality controls like PoweRec to ensure a quality back-up. PoweRec (Plextor Optimised Writing Error Reduction Control) monitors the quality of the disc while burning and will adjust the speed if necessary. You can read a full explanation of the PoweRec technique in this PDF-document. The main features include:

• The first function will identify and test the target disc and select an optimised write strategy for the media. Running optimum power calibration will overcome the variation in dye characteristics over the disc.
• During writing, real-time write quality monitoring ensures the best write quality for the selected speed. If write errors are likely to occur, the recording speed will be decreased automatically by the drive.

The PlexWriter's PoweRec technology can also be disabled in Nero Burning Rom and via the PlexTools software. This way you can actually check at which speed the inserted media would normally be written when PoweRec is left enabled (see PoweRec recommended write speed in the picture below):

VariRec Technology:

Just like Yamaha with its 'Advanced Audio Master Quality Recording', Plextor has introduced its own technology when writing audio discs. This technology, called VariRec (Variable Recording), allows changing the laser power when writing audio at 4X (in TAO or DAO mode). With the VariRec option the user can make a slight modification to the default setting:

VariRec has the same goal as Yamaha's 'Advanced Audio Master Quality Recording'; to reduce jitter. Like said the user can make a slight modification (-2 ~ +2) to the laser power to achieve the best result for their audio back-ups.

With VariRec enabled you should be able to improve the quality of the recorded disc and make it more compatible with picky CD-players like a car stereo. The default '0' setting is based on results from a database which in turn are the result of thorough tests in the Plextor labs.

Other measurements to decrease jitter are the Plextor's black tray which was designed to absorb laser reflected light (reflected by various objects such as the mirror-like metal layer of the disc, but also from the shiny metal screw heads, the slider bars and so on) and an optimised PCB (Power Circuitry Board). The optimised PCB was designed to reduce power-supply induced noise. Special designed circuitry will guarantee host independent and noise-free power supply.

Write Method:

The PlexWriter 40/12/40S uses the Z-CLV write method (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) when writing CD-R's. Z-CLV is used to reduce the rotation speed of the CD-R disc inside the recorder and thus reducing noise and stress on the drive mechanism. During switching writing speeds, the drive's buffer underrun technique (BURN-Proof in this case) takes over preventing buffer underruns. In the screenshot below you can see a test burn done with Nero CD Speed :

The green line indicates the writing speed.
The yellow line indicates the rotation speed (rpm) of the CD-R(W).

In the produced Nero CD Speed graph you can clearly see that the Plextor PX-W4012S drive uses four zones to write the disc:

Zone 1: The burn process begins at 20x (3000KB/s) and at the 4 minute mark the write speed increases to Zone 2: 24x (3600KB/s). At the 24 minute mark the write speed increases again to Zone 3: 32x (4800KB/s). Finally at the 50 minute mark the write speed increases to the maximum write speed Zone 4: 40x (6000KB/s) and remains at this speed until the end of the disc is reached.

The Plextor PX-W4012S' write method is exactly the same as the internal (IDE) PX-W4012TA drive and it's thus no surprise the average write speeds are also almost exactly the same. In the screenshot above you can see that the average write speed of the SCSI PlexWriter is 30.58x.

A small note that's worth mentioning here are the LEDs on the front of the Plextor drive. During the write process you can actually check at which speed the drive is writing because it switches from the low-speed to the high-speed LEDs!

The Package

Data Read Tests