ASUS DRW-2014L1T 20x DVD±RW/RAM

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.10.1.0 and DLA 5.20:

To test the DVD writing performance of ASUS's new drive I used Verbatim 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R, 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW media. To get the writing times, a 4.38GB image was burned to our test discs using Nero.

When writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 20x, the DRW-2014L1T uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that ASUS's new drive starts writing at about 8x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

ASUS's new drive also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. In both cases it uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum writing speed.

The DRW-2014L1T is the second drive from ASUS to feature 14x DVD-RAM writing speeds. As you can see, it uses CAV to reach this speed.

The DRW-2014L1T performed pretty well when writing to DVD-R media at 20x. While not as fast as the drives from Samsung and LG, it was able to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD in about 5 minutes. Unfortunately, the DRW-2014L1T didn't do quite as well with DVD+R media. The drive had a tendency to slow down before it reached 20x, which which added about 30 seconds to its overall time.

To check the media compatibility of the DRW-2014L1T, I ran a few tests using some of the media available in my area. The media types, along with the average time it took the drive to write our 4.38GB image, are listed below.

So what about writing quality? Testing a drive's DVD writing quality isn't easy. Until now, there were very few options, unless you wanted to shell out thousands of dollars for a certified test machine. Thanks to KProbe, we can test a disc's PI (Parity Inner) and PIF (Parity Inner Fail) rates.For these tests I used a Lite-On SHM-165H6S (firmware HS0E) and read the discs at 4x with the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8 and 1 respectively. For comparison, I also tested the discs on a BenQ DW1640 (firmware BSLB). When combined with Nero CD Speed, the DW1640 is able to report PI Errors, PI Failures, Parity Outer Failures and even jitter levels. For this test, the discs are read at 8x with both the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8.

So what are "good" results supposed to look like? With KProbe, the PI errors should not exceed 280 and the number of PIF errors should stay below 4. When testing with CD Speed, the number of PI errors should stay below 280 as well. However, because it scans with an ECC sum of 8, a higher number of PIF errors is acceptable, as long as they do not exceed 32. Since POF errors are uncorrectable, we really don't want to see any of them at all.

I also put these discs through a "stress test" by reading them back at 16x with the DW1640. By reading these discs back at this speed, we can see if there are any readability issues caused by the number of errors or high levels of jitter.

The DRW-2014L1T's writing quality was pretty good with most of the DVD+R media we tested. Aside from a few small spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed well within acceptable limits.

While the writing quality varied from one manufacturer to another, the results were pretty good with most of our DVD-R test media. The only real exception was RiDATA's 16x media. When scanned with CD Speed, the PIF rate was a little higher than we'd like to see near the end.

To test the DRW-2014L1T's packet writing performance I used DLA 5.20. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 12x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

While not the fastest drive here, the DRW-2014L1T turned in some fairly good writing times with DVD-RW and DVD+RW media. Unfortunately, the drive's 14x DVD-RAM writing speed did not live up to my expectations. With DLA, it took the drive almost 17 minutes to write 4GB of data. I also tried other packet writing software and nothing came close to the performance I saw with CD Speed.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.10.1.0:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the DRW-2014L1T, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from Memorex, RiDATA and Verbatim. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

The DRW-2014L1T wasn't as fast as I had expected when writing to DVD+R DL media at 8x. With Nero, it took the drive 20:15 to write 8001MB of data. If you do the math, this is nearly three and a half minutes slower than the DH-20A3H, which also writes at 8x. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was fairly good with Verbatim's 8x and 2.4x DVD+R DL media. Aside from a few isolated spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed well within acceptable limits. Unfortunately, the results weren't as good with Memorex's 8x DVD+R DL media. When tested with KProbe and CD Speed, the error and jitter rates were very high at the layer change.

The DRW-2014L1T wasn't any faster when writing to DVD-R DL media. This time around, it took the drive 20:52 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was fairly good with Verbatim's 4x and 8x DVD-R DL media. The discs from RiDATA also yielded some pretty good results when tested with KProbe. However, when scanned by the DW1640, the PI rates were a little high throughout some sections of the disc. As you can see, this caused some readability issues.

Performance Revisited:

The performance of ASUS's "Super Multi" drive was pretty mixed, especially when it came to writing DVD's. The DRW-2014L1T had no problems holding its own when writing to DVD-R and DVD±RW media. However, it wasn't as fast as some of the other drives when writing to DVD+R, DVD-RAM and DVD±R DL discs. Reading DVD's wasn't a problem for the DRW-2014L1T either. In our tests, it was able to read single layer data and video DVD's at 16x and DVD±R media at a respectable 12x.

Unfortunately, the DRW-2014L1T didn't perform quite as well when reading CD's. The drive had a hard time reaching its rated speeds when reading pressed media and its CD-R read speed was limited to only 40x. The DRW-2014L1T also took a little longer than some of the other drives when writing CD's. Nevertheless, its writing quality was quite good. With all things considered, the ASUS DRW-2014L1T gets a 6 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.