here’s a breakdown of the utilities that I used for testing this drive: - CD-Tach - DVD-Tach - SiSoft’s Sandra 2001
And a list of units that I used for comparison: - Pioneer DVD115 DVD-ROM drive (of course) - Kenwood 72x True-X CD-ROM - Creative 8x4x32 CD-RW - Creative 52x CD-ROM - Pioneer 36x CD-ROM
CD-Tach - I started out with the CD-Tach program. It runs a series of tests over the entire disk area to give you a very good idea as to the speeds that the drive is attaining over the complete platter. With the difference of speeds between the inner portion of the disk and the outer, this program allows you to get a good average speed of the unit. It also tests Random Access Times and Full Stroke Access Times, as well as CPU usage under stress.
As you can see above, the drive averaged just a shade over 30x in overall speed. Not too shabby at all considering that many drives have a difficult time averaging better than half of the so called Max Speed. The access times weren’t stellar, but they are most definitely acceptable. CPU utilization was outstanding at normal speeds, and even maxing the drive out it only had a 5% usage. With numbers like these, it’s beginning to look better all the time.
DVD-Tach - The next utility that I used was a program called DVD-Tach. it’s made by the same company that makes the CD-Tach program, but it tests for DVD playback and functionality. It basically covers the same type statistics as CD-Tach, but from a DVD standpoint.
Again we see that there is a solid performance being given by this drive. The numbers are very consistent with its other abilities, and CPU Usage is still very low. it’s no good when a drive uses too many CPU cycles and then takes away from the quality by draining the entire system. At 10x average speed rating, I’m very pleased with the results.
SiSoft Sandra 2001 - The final utility that I used was SiSoft’s Sandra 2001. It is a general multi-purpose benchmarking program that has a multitude of uses. One of it’s many abilities is to test CD and DVD drives and then compare them to a baseline of common units that are on the street. I ran the testing twice…once with a CD in the drive to test for it’s effectiveness in that arena, and then once again with a DVD disk in the unit to see how it stood against other players in that area.
This drive is rated at a maximum speed rating of 40x when used as a CD-ROM drive. By comparing the scores above, it looks like this unit is right on track with that claim. I ran the test twice so that I would know that the results were consistent. The result was nearly identical, so the rating seems to be on the money.
Once again, this drive beats the others within Sandra 2001. I had expected it to do a little better since it’s rated at 16x DVD and was compared to a 5x, but the end result is still the same. it’s beating out the other drives in its database. It is providing a very respectable transfer rate that will allow me to speed right along… IF someone decides to start creating media in a DVD format. It does a mighty fine job with movies though.
