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Sony BWU-100A detail information

Posted by agent009
Posted on 26/06/07 06:17
Number of views 20671
Manufacturer Sony
Product Sony BWU-100A
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DVD RAM writing performance

DVD-RAM writing performance

Sony BWU-100A supports reading and writing DVD-ROM.

DVD-RAM is a veteran among the three DVD formats. It is a ten-year old format, and it predates the DVD-R format by one year.

The DVD-RAM format is inherently more reliable than other DVD rewritable formats due to its superior error control, defect management, and the option of hardware data verification during writing.

DVD-RAM defect management provides data structures, stored on each disc, that allow unusable sectors to be relocated. It also allows the number of relocated sectors to grow over time, effectively reversing the negative effect of gradual media deterioration.

Looking at the recording side of a DVD-RAM disc, it is easy to notice that the data surface is very different from DVD+R and DVD-R discs. It has a fascinating pattern of small rectangles:


DVD-RAM recording surface

The rectangles are embossed (pre-recorded) areas that contain addressing information and other sector header data. The data portions of track sectors cover the remaining bulk of the surface.

A 4.7 GB DVD-RAM disc is divided into 34 zones, each comprising 1,888 tracks. The number of sectors increases from 25 sectors per track in the innermost zone 0 to 59 sectors per track in the outermost zone 33. This track layout explains the pattern we see on the recording side of a DVD-RAM disc.

In our setup, running on Windows Vista, a DVD-RAM disc can be formatted in any of the following formats: FAT32, UDF 1.02, UDF 1.5, UDF 2.0, UDF 2.01, or UDF 2.5:


DVD-RAM format choices

Formatting a DVD-RAM disc takes only a few seconds:


DVD-RAM format confirmation


DVD-RAM format complete

Once formatted, DVD-RAM appears as one of the storage devices:


DVD-RAM drive properties

Many operating systems (Mac OS X, Windows XP, Windows Vista) support DVD-RAM formatting, reading and writing directly, without the need to install any additional drivers or software. Once a DVD-RAM disc is formatted, it acts like a removable hard drive and all writing is done in the background. This means that you do not have to wait for the drive to finish writing and can continue working with applications while the DVD-RAM drive is doing the burning.

In the tests below, we will explore DVD-RAM writing by Sony BWU-100A with media from several manufacturers.

Maxell 5x DVD-RAM


Maxell 5x DVD-RAM
(Thanks to Maxell USA for providing this media)


Disc information


Disc creation test


Transfer rate test


Disc creation test (with verification)

Sony BWU-100A writes 5x DVD-RAM using a fast CLV strategy.

Please note how turning on data verification has slowed writing speed from an average of 4.99x to 2.00x. This is due to the drive constantly reading back the data after writing it, to verify that it has been correctly stored. It is a slow writing technique but in combination with the defect management mechanism of DVD-RAM it is as close to "bullet proof", in terms of preventing data loss, as one can get with optical media.

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Reactions on this item
"handles all optical media"

except HDDVD perhaps :S
Good point!

Unfortunately, 1x HD-DVD burners are just beginning to appear this summer [in notebooks], so HD-DVD burning has been no more than a theoretical possibility even though HD-DVD-R and -RW media has been out for months.

Toshiba's SD-H903A 1x HD-DVD burner is awfully late for a product launched/unveiled six months ago. They better hurry. You know: train... leaving the station... :)
why even bother, over a year has gone by and blu-ray has been pumping out 2x burners and now 4x, later 6x, and hd-dvd will finally have 1x and barely be able to store 15GB.... why?? 15GB?? come on, seems so last-gen, 50GB's where its at.
Hey Agent009, I like your review. Good to see some opinions here and there about the burns, which I agree with more than I usually do.

Just wondering if that benQ you used for scanning is a rebadged liteon? If it's genuine benQ, I wonder why you didn't use cdspeed for scanning + jitter, it would be nice to see how good the jitter was on some of those discs that had ridiculously low error levels (MCC003 in particular) :)
"Just wondering if that benQ you used for scanning is a rebadged liteon? If it's genuine benQ, I wonder why you didn't use cdspeed for scanning + jitter, it would be nice to see how good the jitter was on some of those discs that had ridiculously low error levels (MCC003 in particular)"

DW1680 is a MediaTek/Lite-On design [otherwise KProbe wouldn't have worked with it], equivalent to LH-16A1P.

We use KProbe for quality testing to keep reviews consistent, but you are right, CD-DVD Speed does provide more quality data.

In BWU-100A DVD+R burns, jitter is pretty low. It usually averages 9% +-0.4% when measured by either BenQ or Lite-On drives.
BD-R discs are 24.2GB unlike BD-RE which are 25GB? Why's that?
"BD-R discs are 24.2GB unlike BD-RE which are 25GB? Why's that?"

I believe this is the way CD-DVD Speed reports capacities.

25,025,xxx,xxx bytes is the so-called 'gross' BD-RE capacity before 12,288 clusters are allocated for the inner spare area (ISA0).

The same number of 64 KB clusters is lost with BD-R as well, but the 24,220,xxx,xxx number reported for BD-R is the 'net' capacity.

In both cases, usable space ends up being the same 24,220,xxx,xxx bytes.
Whoah only 15GB?? - i didn't know that.
Havent payed much attention yet as its still sorta early to consider using anything newer than DVD as a cost effective measure..
But yeah, absolutely too small for next gen, which is sad because I hate sony and everything they are about.

btw nice writeup 009
Hi,

thanks for the review, I appreciate it, I was wondering if anybody here, maybe able to help me with a question, I am thinking of fitting one of these into a custom HTPC case. Is this the same same size dimensions as current DVD drives and also, does the front bezel remove easily as current drives, I need to remove to be able to fit the drive into my custom case, as long as it is standard sizeand the bezel comes off, I will be fine.

thanks for any feedback.
"Is this the same same size dimensions as current DVD drives and also, does the front bezel remove easily as current drives, I need to remove to be able to fit the drive into my custom case, as long as it is standard sizeand the bezel comes off, I will be fine."

Yes, the bezel is removable. It is held in place by plastic tabs, as with any other drive.

BWU-100A is a standard 5.25 inch drive that is 190 mm long. This is longer than usual and about the maximum length that 5.25 inch bays are designed for. It may be a tight fit in very small cases like Shuttle. I don't think you will have trouble fitting it in an HTPC case, but to be sure, measure the length of the drive bay.
I bought an oem bwu-100A on ebay a few months ago for under $500. It can only write BD-R and BD-RW at 1x. Several people in cyberspace mentioned that because of the "write verify" turned on at the hardware level and Nero doesn't have an option to turn it off. Though Imgburn has the option, it doesn't support the INCD UDF format Nero is using. It seems that new drives like that in this review doen't have the problem. I just wish Sony can release a firmware update to solve this problem.
"I bought an oem bwu-100A on ebay a few months ago for under $500. It can only write BD-R and BD-RW at 1x. Several people in cyberspace mentioned that because of the "write verify" turned on at the hardware level and Nero doesn't have an option to turn it off. Though Imgburn has the option, it doesn't support the INCD UDF format Nero is using. It seems that new drives like that in this review doen't have the problem. I just wish Sony can release a firmware update to solve this problem."

...is this true? BD-R at 1x? Is this only on the OEM version? I am also looking at a (retail) version from ebay and wondering if anyone else had same experiences... thx
It seems that there are two different versions on the market. According to the CNET review, "Burning a BD-R with 23GB of mixed data files took 1 hour, 40 minutes, 11 seconds.". NOT 45 minutes in the review here.

http://reviews.cnet.com/dvd-drives/sony-bwu-100a-blu/4505-3212_7-31899197.html
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