Memorex DVD+/-RWN16 D2 external DVD Burner Review

Reading performance:

For these tests we will use Nero CD-DVD Speed to read various CD’s and DVD’s, including audio discs and DVD-Video. According to the specifications, this drive supports a specified read speed of 16X for DVD-ROM’s and 48X for CD-ROM’s.

Pressed CD-ROM discs:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing Canon Digital Camera Solution Disk ver 9.0 that is 73:12.38 minutes long. Below you will see the produced result:

The Memorex drive was able to reach 45.17x at the end of the CD-ROM disc, slightly slower than the advertised specification of 48x.

Please note that CD-ROM size varies slightly in these tests. The table should be used as a rough comparison between drives.

The Memorex 16×16 external is a good CD-ROM reader.

CD-Recordable discs:

For this test we made a copy of the original Canon Digital Camera Solution CD. The disc we used was a Verbatim 48X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

CD-R read speeds are also looking good on this drive.

Please note that CD-R size varies slightly in these tests. The table should be used as a rough comparison between drives.

The Memorex DVD+/-RWN16 D2 performed as expected with CD-R reading.

CD-ReWriteable discs:

Again we made a copy of the original Canon Digital Camera Solution CD. The disc we used was a Verbatim HighSpeed 12X CD-RW disc manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

CD-RW reading maxed out at 34.23x on our test disc.

Please note that CD-RW size varies slightly in these tests. The table should be used as a rough comparison between drives.

The Memorex DVD+/-RWN16 D2 is an okay CD-RW reader, but it can’t compete with the drives that read CD-RW at 40x, or even 48x reading speeds.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the Memorex DVD+/-RWN16 D2, we again used Nero CD/DVD-Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is approximately 74 minutes long (74:02:70).

The Memorex DVD+/-RWN16 D2 hit just over 34x maximum when reading a 74 minute Audio CD.

Please note that Audio CD size varies slightly in these tests. The table should be used as a rough comparison between drives.

The Memorex DVD+/-RWN16 D2 is one of the slower drives for reading Audio CD’s. On the positive side, the DAE Quality is a perfect 10 and it does achieve an Accurate Stream.

Advanced Audio – DAE quality test:

Before we move on to testing DVD read speeds, we perform one last audio test. This time we used the ‘Advanced DAE Quality Test” feature in CD-Speed.

The drive shows excellent Audio extracting quality and the ‘Read CD Text” and ‘Read Subchannel Data” features are supported, which is a positive. Unfortunately, the drive is unable to read from the Leadin or the Leadout of Audio CDs. CD Speed also indicates that this drive might be too slow to be used as the reading (source) drive during a 16x ‘On The Fly’ CD copy.

DVD Reading performance:

DVD – DVD Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with single and double layer DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it is useful to be able to read the discs at higher speeds if you’re going to extract (rip) the content of the disc to your hard drive.  We had trouble performing this test via the USB 2.0 connection, so we hooked up the drive via Firewire (IEEE 1394) to perform these DVD Video reading tests.

SL DVD Video

DL DVD Video

The Memorex DVD+/-RWN16 D2 only hits 5X reading speeds on the single layer DVD Video disc and also approximately 5X on the double layer DVD Video disc.

Please note that disc size varies slightly in these tests. The table should be used as a rough comparison between drives.

The Memorex DVD+/-RWN16 D2 is one of the slowest drives for DVD Video reading due to the 5x riplock. We also tested with a data DVD-ROM disc and found that the drive can read data DVD-ROMs at 16x CAV.

DVD – DVD+R(W):

For these tests we used a Taiyo Yuden 8X DVD+R and a Verbatim 4X DVD+RW with about 4.4GB of data. Below are the results:

DVD+R

DVD+RW

The Memorex DVD+/-RWN16 D2 reads DVD+R discs at 16x CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) and DVD+RW discs at 8x CAV.

Please note that disc size varies slightly in these tests. The table should be used as a rough comparison between drives.

The Memorex 16×16 external has very good reading speed on DVD+R media, but as you can see it had trouble hitting the full 16x speed on the USB 2.0 interface on our AMD CPU system. Performance was slightly better on our Intel CPU system. The DVD+R reading speed is nevertheless still impressive, making it one of the fastest DVD+R readers available. For DVD+RW reading, the speeds are one of the slowest out of all of the drives that we have tested. We would really like to see faster DVD+RW reading speeds on this drive.

Just for comparison purposes, we tested DVD+R reading when connected via Firewire (IEEE 1394).

On the Firewire connection, the DVD+R reading can hit 16x speeds with no trouble at all.

DVD – DVD-R(W) :

For this test we used a Taiyo Yuden 8X DVD-R disc and a Verbatim 4X DVD-RW disc filled with approximately 4.38Gb of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

DVD-RW

The Memorex reads DVD-R discs at 16x CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) and DVD-RW discs at 8x CAV.

Please note that disc size varies slightly in these tests. The table should be used as a rough comparison between drives.

Once again we see trouble hitting the full 16x reading speed on the USB 2.0 interface on our AMD CPU system. Performance was slightly better on our Intel CPU system. Just like the DVD+R reading, the drive is still faster than most of the competition when reading DVD-R. The DVD-RW reading speeds are slow and we would like to see these improved.

Overall Reading Performance thoughts:

The Memorex DVD+/-RWN16 D2 can read DVD+R and DVD-R discs at 16x CAV. Even though the drive tops out at about 15x on the USB 2.0 connection, it is still an excellent choice for reading and copying DVD±R discs. Thankfully when the drive is connected with the Firewire interface, both DVD+R and DVD-R reading speeds hit 16x without any problems.  DVD Video reading speeds are disappointing due to the 5x riplock implemented in the firmware. Both single and double layer DVD Video discs will be stuck at the slow pace of 5x CAV, which will be annoying to users who want to use this drive to backup their DVD movies. DVD±RW reading speeds were also slower than what we would like to see. CD-ROM and CD-R reading speeds are okay but the CD-RW reading speed is somewhat slow at 32x CAV. We would like to see a higher CD-RW reading speed.

But now let’s head on to the next page for something more interesting, CD-R Writing performance…