For these tests we will use Nero CD/DVD-Speed to read various CD and DVD’s, including audio discs and DVD-media. As already mentioned in the introduction, this drive supports:

• DVD-ROM : 16x
• CD-R/ROM : 48x (with Turbo Boost activated. Without Turbo Boost 40x. See Turbo Boost Function on page 2.)

Pressed discs:

For this test we used an original pressed CD-ROM disc containing about 75 minutes in length. We will test the drive without Turbo Boost activated:

The Sony DRU-830A reached 47.55x. Let’s compare the result with other drives performance in the table below:

The Sony DRU-830A is pretty fast drive and seek times are low reading pressed CD-ROM.

CD-Recordable Discs:

For this test we used a Data CD-R that was made using Nero CD-DVD Speed “create data disc”. The disc we used was a Fujifilm 48x certified CD-R disc manufactured by Taiyo Yuden.

The Sony DRU-830A reached 48x when reading a full CD-R disc. Now let us compare the result to some other drives:

The Sony DRU-830A is among the fastest drives and seek times are low on the CD-R discs.

CD-Rewritable discs:

Again, we made a Data CD with Nero CD-DVD Speed “create data disc”. This time we used a Memorex Ultra Speed (24X) CD-RW disc made by Infodisc Technology Co., Ltd.

The drive reads CD-RW discs at 40x speed. Check how this compares to other drives below.

The Sony DRU-830A performed average on reading CD-RW and seek times are very good.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the Sony DRU-830A, again we used Nero CD-DVD Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is 76 minutes in length (76:04.45).

The Sony DRU-830A reached 40x reading Audio-CD. Now let us compare the result with other drives:

The Sony DRU-830A performed average on the Audio-CD with low seek times.

Advanced audio – DAE quality test:

For this test we used the “Advanced DAE Quality Test” feature in Nero CD-DVD Speed. The CD-R media we used is a 40x certified Memorex Music CD-R made by Ritek. (Thanks to Memorex USA for sending us this media.)

The extracting quality is excellent and it should support everything except reading data from the Lead-in and Lead-out.

DVD reading performance:

Again, we will use Nero CD-Speed to measure the reading performance, this time for various types of DVD discs. The drive should read pressed single layer DVD-discs at 16X.

DVD – DVD-Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with a single and Double Layered DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it’s 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.

DVD-Video Single Layer

 
DVD-Video Double Layer

The Sony DRU-830A reads a pressed DVD-Video at up to 16x for a Single Layer disc. However the drive reads a Double Layer disc at only 8x.

The Sony DRU-830A performed very well with our DVD-Video Single Layer and slow on Double Layer read tests.

DVD – DVD+R(W):

For this test we used a Verbatim 16x DVD+R and a Verbatim 8x DVD+RW with 4.38GB of data. (Thanks to Verbatim USA for sending us this media.) Below are the results:

DVD+R

DVD+RW

The drive is locked and performed below average on DVD+R/RW discs. Now let us see how it will perform on DVD-R/RW.

DVD – DVD-R/RW:

For this test we used a Verbatim 16X DVD-R disc and a Verbatim 6X DVD-RW disc filled with 4.38GB of data. (Thanks to Verbatim USA for sending us this media.) Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

 
DVD-RW

There are hardly any differences compared to reading the DVD+R/RW discs. The drive reads DVD-R disc at 12x speed and the DVD-RW disc at 8x speed.

The drive performed slow when reading DVD-R and DVD-RW discs.

DVD – DVD±R DL:

For this test we used a Verbatim 8x DVD+R DL disc and a Ridata 6X DVD-R DL disc filled with 4.38GB of data. (Thanks to Verbatim USA and Advanced Media/Ridata for sending us these media.) Our test results are found below:

DVD+R DL

 
DVD-R DL

Again the drive is locked and reads DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL at 8x speed.

DVD – DVD-RAM:

For this test we used a Maxell 12x DVD-RAM filled with 4.27GB of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-RAM 

The Sony DRU-830A reads DVD-RAM at 12x in 5:35 minutes without any problem.

Overall thoughts:

The Sony DRU-830A although is not the fastest reader but it proved reliable.

But now it’s time to head on to a more interesting part: Writing CD-R and CD-RW discs…