Plextor PX-W4824TU



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Review: Plextor PX-W4824TU
Reviewer: G@M3FR3@K
Provided by: Plextor Europe
Firmware: version 1.02
Production date: September 2002
TLA#: 0001

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A few weeks ago we presented you with our in depth review of Plextor's latest recorder the
PX-W4824A drive. Today we have a new review for
you of basically the same drive but now in an external case using the USB 2.0 interface. Because the 'A' and 'TU' drive
are the same drive our test results will probably be the same as we got with the internal model but this Plextor
PX-W4824TU drive has the latest firmware version (v1.02) and it will be interesting to see if there have been any improvements.

Of course this external Plextor drive has the same features as we saw on the internal model. The drive supports the new
ultra-speed (24X) re-write standard, the same fastest access time ever (< 65ms), Mount Rainier and 48X
CAV recording of data and audio. Besides that
we of course have the usual Plextor technologies on board such as PoweRec and VariRec ensuring a quality back-up.

USB 2.0
As we just mentioned this Plextor drive uses the USB 2.0 standard which we also saw on the Plextor
PX-W4012TU drive. USB 2.0 is still a pretty new
technology that extends the speed of the peripheral-to-PC connection up to 40 times over existing capabilities. USB 2.0 can
reach speeds up to 480 Mb/sec, 40 times faster than USB 1.1.

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In this review we will take a look at this latest external Plextor drive and see if the drive performs the same as the
internal model we reviewed a few weeks ago. Read on to find out what we have to say about this Plextor drive!

Test Machine:

For the tests we'll be using the following configuration:

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Hardware:

  • Motherboard: GigaByte GA-7VAXP
  • Processor: AMD AthlonXP 2100+
  • RAM: 256MB (PC2700)
  • GFX: ASUS V8200 (GeForce 3 Ti200)
  • Hard Disks: DiamondMax 40GB & 30GB (7200rpm)
  • IDE Controller: PCI UDMA100 Controller

System set-up:

System set-up

As you can see the Plextor PX-W4824TU was hooked up to the onboard USB 2.0 Controller and identifies itself as "PLEXTOR
CD-R PX-W4824A". As you can see this Plextor USB 2.0 is thus just a normal PX-W4824A drive but with an external case.
Autorun was disabled for every device.

Used Software:

The Windows XP Professional operating system is installed on our test machine. We'll be using the following software
to perform the various tests:

On the next page we'll take a look at the retail package of the Plextor PX-W4824TU...


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