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| Introduction | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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While doing research for this review, we realized that we had to go back nearly three years - an eternity in the PC industry - to find the last HotHardware article on optical drives. For a comparative look at technologies, back then we were using single core Pentium 4s in Intel 865/875 boards, GeForce 6800s and 1GB of blazing fast 533MHz RAM. One of the reasons for the lack of optical drives articles is that not much has rocked this area since that time. There have been minor bumps in speed from 16x to 18x (and now 20x) and swapping of the interface from IDE to SATA, but nothing truly earth shattering has happened. And until the next-gen HD optical format wars are settled and prices come down to reasonable levels, we wouldn't touch the current crop of recordable Blu-Ray or HD DVD drives with a stick. This DVD burner round-up consists of some of the more well-known names out there: Plextor, Lite-On, and Asus, all of which have produced some fine drives over the years. Plextor has been praised for their technological advancements in the area, Lite-On for their lower prices, and Asus for their quiet operation. But, three years later, is there really any major difference between the three? Is any one drive really that much better than any other? With prices reaching all-time lows, we grabbed three of their latest models for some thorough testing to determine just how they stacked up.
Looking at the specs from each drive, there really aren't any glaring omissions from any of the entries. Each of them have 2MB of Cache, SATA interfaces, and the capability to write to just about all media types out there. Plextor's drive is the oldest of the three, bringing with it the slowest rated DVD and CD writing speeds at 18x and 40x, respectively, yet it also claims to have the quickest access times. The PX-810SA also is the only one that doesn't support LightScribe, which allows the user to etch an image on the topside of the disc instead of affixing a label. That may or may not be a huge-selling point for some buyers (we prefer printable discs ourselves over LightScribe). |
| Asus DRW-2014L1T |
Although the inner workings may change a bit here and there, the outside has generally not changed save for a few slot-loading drives that Plextor and Pioneer used a few years back. Asus' logo is featured prominently on the drive door, with assorted other graphics that quickly list the drive's abilities: CD & DVD playback, reading, and writing capabilities, as well as Lightscribe. A single eject button provides the only user input, and an access light the output. Typically, an emergency eject pin-hole is found on optical drives, and Asus placed theirs just above the eject button. Perhaps the only major change for those who haven't been down this road just yet, are the two SATA connections on the rear of the drive; one each for data and power. Like most of the drives seen today, the Asus DRW-2014L1T ships with a black bezel, however it is the only drive in our round-up to also include an alternate white colored bezel as well. It also included four small screws for installing the drive into a chassis. The drop in prices, it seems, has also led to most manufacturers cutting back on accessories such as software and media, but Asus included NERO 7 Essentials which will at least get the user some functionality for their new drive with no added cost. There's also a printed manual (in 33 languages!) for those that need additional help.
NERO INFOTOOL:
Using NERO Infotool, part of the NERO 8 Ultimate Suite, we can get a quick picture of what each drive can and can't do. The latest version supports not only CD and DVD drives, but HD-DVD and Blu-Ray as well, as the latter drives will start to increase in popularity as prices continue to drop. Shown in the screen capture above, the DRW-2014L1T is using the original version of the Firmware. We checked Asus's website for any updates, but found that there were no later versions. The buffer size is a mere 2MB, but this is the norm for most drives today. It's actually easier to list the non-supported features here, as only writing to CD-Text, CD+G, C2Error and DVD-ROM are not capable with this drive. The general features lists buffer underun protection, (what used to be called Flextralink) and LightScribe as additional capabilities. |
| Lite-On LH-20A1L |
The LH-20A1L is the only drive of the three that does not have a company logo on it - typical of most of Lite-On's products. Instead, it prominently displays DVD Multi-Recorder, DVD-Read/Write, Compact Disc, and Lightscribe logos across the drive tray. All dressed in black, it has a power eject button in the lower right with an emergency pinhole located on the left side nearby a drive access LED. Although probably not too significant, the internals of the drive are beige, striking a contrast against the opened tray (the other drives are black throughout). SATA data and power connectors are placed on the rear of the drive as expected. NERO INFOTOOL:
Running NERO InfoTool on the Lite-On LH-20A1L shows few differences from the Asus DRW-2014. The Firmware Version is BL05, which is also the latest and supposedly helps out with crashing and freezing of Windows while burning DVDs. Buffer size is again shown to be 2MB. Almost all CD and DVD formats are supported, with reading CD+G the only format lacking that the Asus drive had featured. |
| Plextor PX-810SA |
Plextor's PX-810SA is the final black beauty in our round-up. It's both the longest and heaviest of the three drives, although not enough of either to make much of a difference when installing into cramped quarters such as in a Small Form Factor PC. The tray is graced by the company logo and model number, making it easy to identify which drive is installed - something we believe only Plextor does, but even then sporadically. The drives features are laid out graphically in a row with the power eject button and busy LED. As with the others, a small pinhole for manually ejecting a disc is placed towards the left side of the front plate.
Arriving in a white box with large numerals, the PX-810SA is not shy about advertising the top writing speeds for DVD+/-R and DVD-RAM media. The only problem is finding these discs for retail. Gone are the PlexTools CDs that typically accompanied their drives. Instead we've got a disc with Easy Media Creator 9, a PDF version of the setup manual and an installation file for Adobe Reader 7. There's also a quick installation guide and four screws, but no usuable media so make sure you purchase a spindle with that new drive. NERO INFOTOOL: Looking at NERO InfoTool one last time, we notice that the list of features is the same as the Lite-On drive with the sole exception of support for LightScribe. Even though the drive was released back in June of this year, there have been no Firmware revisions, which may be a good thing, as it might point to few known issues with burning or stability. |
| NERO DiscSpeed Read Tests | ||||||||||||||||
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We continued our testing of the trio of burners using NERO's DiscSpeed 4. This is an exceptionally versatile tool that allows us to peer into the drive's behavior during various operations. We ran several read tests on each drive using various types of media. Please note that in each test, the Green line represents Rotation Speed while the Yellow Line represents the drive's progress. With our first test we inserted a CD-R with a single 677MB AVI file and initiated the read test.
Although not discussed as fervently as in days past, reading CDs is still the number one priority for the majority of drives. Speeds have actually been dropped from highs of 52x and 56x typically to somewhere in the 40s. Of the three drives in our round-up, the Lite-On has the fastest CD-R read speed at 48x, and not surprisingly leads the other two drives in average read speed, topping out at 49.21x. It also posted the lowest random access time at 2ms, although the Plextor was right behind at 3ms. The slowest times overall were found on the Asus DRW-2014L1T, however, this drive also posted the lowest CPU usage. Nero DiscSpeed 4 - DVD+R Read Test: In our next test we inserted a DVD+R full of both large and small files to test DVD data read rates. We tried another round of read tests using a DVD-R full of average size MP3s. Finally, we popped in a copy of BloodRayne, a dual-layer DVD-ROM, to see how the drives performed. |
| NERO DiscSpeed Write Tests | |||||||||||||
Nero DiscSpeed 4 - CD-R Write Test:
CD-R writing has become a low-cost method of transferring or backing up files, and last we checked a full CD of 700MB only took the user 2-3 minutes to complete. We'd expect that nothing here has changed much, if at all, and each of the drives in our round-up came very close to their rated speeds - 48x for the Asus and Lite-On drives, and 40x for the Plextor. Nero DiscSpeed 4 - DVD+R Write Test:
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| Real World Tests - Disc Recognition and Audio Ripping | ||||||||
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For our final tests, we threw in some "real-world" tests. That is, we timed some ordinary activities such as ripping an audio CD to MP3 or burned full discs to various media.
We grabbed a full-length compact disc off our shelves, which just happened to be the soundtrack for Attack of the Clones (don't ask), and ripped it to 192kbps MP3s using Windows Media Player. The total time from the conversion of the first track to last was a clean 2 minutes and 10 seconds for the Lite-On LH-20A1L, nearly six seconds faster than the closest drive, being the Asus DRW-2014L1T. Plextor's PX-810SA fell into last place in this category, almost 10 seconds slower than Lite-On's drive and 4 seconds slower than the Asus drive. |
| Real World Tests - Burning Discs and Lightscribe | ||||||||
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Probably the most important metric when comparing burners would be how fast they complete the act of copying files to different kinds of media. We used Nero DiscSpeed to fill each disc and timed the process from start to finish. Once again, the Lite-On LH-20A1L outperformed the other two drives, although, to be fair, the Asus and Lite-On drives burn CDs at a max speed of 48x, Plextor at 40x. Plextor's 18x PX-810SA, however, turned the tables on the "faster" 20x drives by producing the quickest burns on both DVD+R and DVD-R media.
We kind of threw this one in here just to show how long it actually takes to burn an image to disc using the LightScribe software. Almost brings back memories of burning CDs using a 2x CD-RW drive over a decade ago, doesn't it? Not to mention that this is the default setting for the LightScribe software, as there is an option to create a darker burn with the caveat that burning times will be even longer. |
| Performance Summary and our Conclusion | ||||||||||||
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Performance Summary: Admittedly, the Plextor PX-810SA would seem to be at a disadvantage when going head-to-head with the other drives, as both DVD and CD writing speeds are rated slightly lower than the newer Asus and Lite-On Models. As it turns out, the PX-810SA not only held its own, but outperformed the Asus DRW-2014L1T and Lite-On LH-20A1L in most DVD burning benchmarks. The LH-20A1L showed its strengths in much of the rest of the testing, as it had the lowest access times, highest burn speeds, and fastest audio ripping times.
Lite-On LH-20A1L: Lite-On is a brand that many enthusiasts have typically chosen for the price vs. performance ratio they deliver, and the LH-20A1L really delivers here as well. In almost all of the synthetic benchmarks, we found the Lite-On model leading the way with some of the lowest access times (typically single digits), highest average and top reading and writing speeds, and moderate CPU usage. We also found that it had the quickest recognition of media times and ripping speeds. Ironically, however, these "victories" didn't translate into the best burning performance. True, it did put in the fastest CD-R burn time at 2:35, but DVD burning is where it's at, and the Lite-On finished second to the final drive in our conclusion.
Plextor PX-810SA: For what should be the slowest drive in the round-up, as far as rated speeds go, the Plextor PX-810SA pleasantly surprised us with the fastest DVD burning times. That was the high point of the testing as in other areas, performance wasn't as hot. Ripping audio and recognizing various types of media were the slowest on this drive, with the sole exception being the DVD recognition of the Asus DRW-2014L1T. But also note, the Plextor PX-810SA is easily the most expensive drive in the group at more than double the cost of the others, while also being the oldest. It's this mixed bag of results that makes it hard to determine whether this drive or the Lite-On LH-20A1L is the better buy, but with the huge price difference we're going to go with the latter.
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