Lite-On SOHR 5238S and CD-RW media

vbimport
#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 :confused:

Thanks in advance,
Reinoud

#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.

#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.

#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.