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In this part of the review we'll take a look at the VisionTek Xtasy 48X's CD-ReWriting abilities and its Mount Rainier (CD-MRW) support. For both tests we used Ahead's InCD version 3.31.0. For the erase tests we used Elaborate Bytes' CloneCD version 4.0.1.6.

Packet Writing:

We formatted a Mitsubishi 650MB CD-RW disc which was certified for 10x re-writing. The VisionTek Xtasy 48X drive is a 12x re-write drive but we had no problems using the Mitsubishi disc at 12x. We fired up InCD, inserted the empty CD-ReWriteable disc in the recorder and measured the time it took from inserting the disc till it was ejected again:

We then measured the time it took for the drive to write our test folder of data (containing 400MB (419.742.820 bytes)). In the table below we've summed it all up for you:

The VisionTek Xtasy 48X performed as expected for a 12x CD-RW drive. It wrote our test folder in about the same time as the other drives did. The Xtasy drive was the fastest drive when it came to erasing the CD-ReWriteable disc with CloneCD as you can also see from the screenshot below:

VisionTek Xtasy 48X erasing CD-RW disc

After erasing the CD-RW disc with CloneCD we wrote the same test data again but now with Nero Burning Rom. In the screenshot below you can see that the VisionTek Xtasy 48X needs 4 minutes and 19 seconds to write the test data. About one minute faster than a 10x CD-ReWriteable recorder:

Mount Rainier Tests:

The VisionTek Xtasy 48X or Lite-On LTR-48125W is the first Lite-On drive to support the Mt. Rainier format 'out-of-the-box'. In this part of the review we'll test the drive's Mt. Rainier (CD-MRW) abilities and compare them to other drives which also support this format. If you want to read more on the CD-MRW format please read our Mount Rainier article. In the table below you can see an overview of the achieved results using InCD version 3.31.0. Please note that we re-did the tests with the TEAC CD-W540E (firmware 1.0C) and the Mitsumi CD-480ATE (firmware 1.0E, 16MB buffer) writer since we did our previous tests using a different software package:

As you can see in the table above the VisionTek/Lite-On drive is kicking some serious butt when it comes to its Mt. Rainier abilities. It beats all drives we've previously reviewed with ease! Other CD-writer manufacturers should go talk to the Lite-On people how they've done this since the differences are striking.

Conclusion:

The VisionTek Xtasy 48X performs as expected with CD-ReWriteable media. It's not the fastest drive we've reviewed but it's very close to the other recorders. It was the fastest drive when it came to erasing the CD-ReWriteable discs.

The Mt. Rainier (CD-MRW) abilities of the VisionTek drive were amazing. The Lite-On based drive was simply the fastest drive we've ever seen and could beat the other drives with ease. The differences weren't even minimal but the drive was sometimes three times faster than the other recorders! The Lite-On team has certainly done their homework when it comes to the Mt. Rainier format.

On the next page we've summed up our tests results with various media...