Lite-On SOHR 5238S and CD-RW media

13thmonkey 2005-07-13 09:02:11 UTC #1

Recently i bought a Lite-On SOHR 5238S (firmware 4S06) and on the whole it functions well though i'm not that satisfied yet with its CD-RW performance. Esp. with Mt. Rainier formatted and certified media its write speed can drop to a stunning 250-300kb/sec whereas the OPC information gives me about 1750 kb/sec :a

The media i used is Lead-Data (650Mb, speed unknown, CD-RW). The OPC data would suggest at least about say 10 speed would be possible but why the 2x-4x? could be that i selected CLV and left the read and write speed to the drive?

I also tried Memorex 8x-12x, 700Mb CD-RW but was having big troubles at the end of the disc...

Any help or URL's to test data would be great. I couldn't find it yet on the forum

Thanks in advance,
Reinoud

code65536 2005-07-13 09:23:12 UTC #2

Lead-Data = :Z This media is junk. BTW, what do you mean by OPC information?
Memorex = usually Infodisc = :Z

Both LD and Infodisc have a long history of problematic performance with a wide variety of drives.

In the world of RW media, there are not many manufacturers, and only some of them make decent quality stuff. Get some decent quality Verbatim.

13thmonkey 2005-07-13 09:51:32 UTC #3

Ah! that explains. Well allthough i'm writing my own CD/DVD tools i haven't looked much at the media i use... as long it was a CD-RW/DVD*RW it was OK and you guessed it: my DVD+RW discs that perform so well in my NEC DVD RW ND-3500AG are DVD+RW 2.4x Nashua media but my CD-RW media is basicly junk media :-S well that would explain a lot!

By OPC information i mean the Optimum Power Calibration data the drive returns when it has calibrated for the Media and is returned by the READ DISC INFORMATION scsi-mmc command. As part of the OPC information a speed in kb/sec is returned for wich this OPC data is deemed valid. This is generally the optimum write speed the drive suggests for the media.

13thmonkey 2005-07-13 12:40:02 UTC #4

Just tested an 4x-10x Samsung CD-RW on it and without MRW it gets about 1600 kb/sec but with MRW it gets 760 kb/sec. Thats propably due to MRW's verify after write behaviour.

Hmm... indeed, media does make a big difference with this drive.