The specifications of Sony DRU-830A state that the drive is able to write CD-R discs at 48x with Turbo Boost activated (see page 2) and CD-RW discs at 32x. Let us find out how the drive really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Quality with CD-R discs:

For our data writing tests, we simply set up a new compilation of about 702Mb using Nero Burning ROM software. Writing method used is DAO (Disc At Once), and the disc is set up as a non-multisession disc with “finalize disc” enabled. The screenshot below shows how long it takes to write a disc at the highest speed (48x):

The drive took 2 minutes and 56 seconds to write the disc at 48x. Let us see how this compares to other drives:

Write Quality:

We will test CD-R discs from different CD-R manufacturers. To really measure the write speed, we used the “create data CD” function in Nero CD-DVD Speed. The discs were written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. For the quality test, we used K-Probe 2 which is a tool developed by a Lite-On employee. It runs under Windows and works with drives made by Lite-On. Also note that different drives and different reading speeds may affect the results obtained when scanning the discs. We used a Lite-On LTR-40125S drive with firmware ZS0R and scanned the discs at 48X speed.

A written CD-R disc will always have some C1 errors; C1 errors are easily corrected by the drive’s error correction capabilities. The next level of errors is C2, while C2 errors could also be corrected by most drive’s error correction capabilities; they are not wanted on a good quality disc. A good disc should not contain any C2 errors, and preferably have an average C1 error amount of below 2.0 for the best quality discs, or at least below 10.0 C1 average for good quality discs. After C2 errors, there are only un-correctable errors that will make a disc unusable.

In short, our analysis will be based on these guideline to determine the quality of the burned disc:

CD-R/RW quality scan guideline

And below are the obtained results:

Verbatim DataLifePlus CD-R media with its average C1 errors of 2.34 goes in the “good quality discs” category.

Verbatim media – manufactured by CMC Magnetics Corporation with its average C1 errors of 4.26 goes in the “good quality discs” category.

Media made by Taiyo Yuden have always had a good reputation and with the average C1 errors of 0.50 it goes into the group “best quality discs” category. Highly recommended!

This Memorex media goes into the category “best quality discs” for its C1 average of 0.67. Very nice!

Writing Quality with CD-RW discs:

Due to requests from our readers, we will add a few write quality tests with re-writable media. Settings and testing procedures is the same as used earlier in this review, so you may want to go back and read them if you are unsure. All discs used for these tests are new and have not been written to before.

Very high C1 errors and unwanted C2 error existed, thus it goes into the “poor quality discs” category.

This is even worse: C1 and C2 errors are extremely high. Nevertheless, this media writes badly and produces C2 errors on many drives.

Summary:

The Sony DRU-830A is an exceptional CD-R Writer that will write quality CD-R media with good to excellent results. On the other hand, the drive will perform differently with CD-RW media. On all CD-RW media we have tested, the writing quality is poor although it’s partly the media problem.

But nevertheless, it’s a DVD-Writer, so head on to next page and read about DVD-Writing performance and DVD media compatibility…