detail information

First things first as we check out the drive specifications as mentioned on the Plextor Europe website and as detected with additional software like Nero InfoTool:

Drive Specifications:

Overall very nice features. 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 external Plextor drive:

As you can see from the screenshot the Plextor PX-W4824TU supports the same features as the internal model. The Plextor 48X models are the first drives the new 'Mount Rainier' format and we hope to see a firmware upgrade for the 40X models soon. As you can also see from the screenshot the read speed of the PX-W4824TU drive is detected as 40X maximum. If you've missed our previous review of the internal model here's the explanation again:

"...Even though it would seem logical to expect the same maximum speed for reading and writing, and if not equal to expect a higher read speed, this is not always the case for Plextor recorders. The reason for this comes from the different characteristics of the media that is typically used in both cases.

Of course the Plextor PX-W4824TU can be 'unlocked' to enable 48X reading. This can be done via the PlexTools software or manually by opening the drive's tray, making sure it's empty, closing it and then by pressing and holding the eject-button for three seconds. The drive's LED will blink four times and the so-called SpeedRead option will then be enabled. You can disable it again (and thus limiting the read speed again) by pushing the eject-button or by cutting the drive's power.

Here's another screenshot of Nero InfoTool when the SpeedRead option has been enabled via the PlexTools software. Notice that the read speed is now detected as 48X:

When you use the Plextor PX-W4824TU drive with the SpeedRead option enabled and a disc should in fact explode inside your recorder, Plextor has fitted the drive with an extra strong front bezel. This will ensure that no parts of the exploded disc can come out through the front of the drive.

Now let's take a closer look at some of the supported features and technologies:

Buffer (Underrun Protection):

The Plextor PX-W4824TU, like all 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 PX-W4824TU 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 you can now also disable PoweRec via the 'Options' menu. We would of course not recommend doing this since when the drive's quality checks are disabled you can risk creating a coaster.

Mount Rainier:

The Plextor PX-W4824A and TU drives are the first Plextor drives to support the Mount Rainier format and as we already tested here the Plextor PX-W4824A and TU drives are doing a great job. 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-W4824TU 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 OPC 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.
• For CAV-mode recordings like the PX-W4824TU uses, Plextor developed a unique and fine-tuned mechanism that offers a combination of speed and quality. The write strategy will change every 1X speed step while the laser power is adjusted every 1 minute position change. Besides this, PoweRec will also use a double safety system to watch over the CAV writing process:
  • Continuous monitoring of the write result will cause the drive to switch to CLV mode if the error signals exceed a certain threshold.
  • Simultaneously a thermistor-based circuit will adjust the Laser Power should the drive's internal temperature rise too much.

As you can see Plextor has put a lot of effort into ensuring a quality write process. While they're now using the CAV write method they're actually still using Z-CLV in a way since the disc is divided into a lot of 1X zones. After each zone the write speed is increased with 1X and the Plextor PX-W4824TU will hit 48X at the 80 minute mark.

VariRec Technology:

Just like Yamaha with its '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 '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:

Next we will take a look at which writing methods the Plextor PX-W4824TU uses to write CD-R's. We used Nero CD Speed to do a test write. Because the Plextor drive is one of the first external drives supporting 'Ultra-Speed CD-RW' writing we also did a test write using the CD-ReWriteable media. Below you can see the produced graphs of both tests:

CD-Recordable:

CD-ReWriteable:

In the produced graphs you can see that the Plextor PX-W4824TU also uses the full CAV method when writing a CD-Recordable disc and P(artial)-CAV when writing the ultra-speed CD-ReWriteable disc. Note that for the write method tests we used an older version of Nero CD Speed (v0.85e) because, for some reason we're unsure of, the latest CD Speed version changed the write method to P-CAV at about 46X.

CD-R

In the left screenshot you see that the Plextor PX-W4824TU comes very close to 48X and would have reached this speed at the 78-minute mark without problems. The Plextor PX-W4824TU reaches a top write speed of 47.22X. The average speed was 36.05X. Not bad for an external drive and further on in our review we'll see what these speeds mean in terms of write times.

CD-RW

When writing CD-RW media you can see from the right screenshot that ultra-speed in this case indeed means ultra fast writing. The Plextor PX-W4824TU's CD-RW performance was of course very close to the PX-W4824A drive. Although Nero CD Speed reports that the drive uses the CLV write method, it actually uses P-CAV, getting an average CD-RW write speed of 23.88X.

Next up in our Plextor PX-W4824TU review, the data read tests.