BD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16:
To test the BD writing performance of LG's new drive I used BD-R, BD-R DL and BD-RE media from Moser Baer, Sony, TDK and Verbatim. To get the writing times, CD Speed's "Create Data Disc" feature was used. I also ran the discs through CD Speed's transfer rate test to make sure that the BH16NS40 could read them back.
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While LG claims that the BH16NS40 can write to BD-R media at 16x, the drive never reached that speed in our tests. With the original 1.00 firmware, the drive would often be limited to 10x or 12x and the few times when it did try to write at 16x, it resulted in a write error. LG eventually fixed the write error with the 1.01 firmware but we still were not able to burn a disc at 16x. In most cases, the BH16NS40 would peak at about 14x before the writing speed dropped to 10x.
| LG BH16NS40 |
LG BH14NS40 |
LG BH12LS38 |
Plextor PX-LB950UE |
|
| BD-R | 9:09 | 8:46 | 9:51 | 11:28 |
| BD-RE | 44:50 | 44:50 | 39:39 | 44:55 |
| BD-R DL | 21:43 | 21:55 | 21:43 | 31:29 |
Needless to say, the BH16NS40 did not perform as well as it should have when writing to BD-R media at 16x. With its writing speed limited to 14x, it took a little more than 9 minutes to burn an entire 25GB disc.
The BH16NS40 performed very well when writing to BD-R media. It completed our tests in record time, beating even the BH12LS38 by more than a minute. LG's new drive didn't disappoint when writing to BD-R DL media either. Thanks to its 12x writing speed, the BH16NS40 took less than 22 minutes to burn 50GB worth of data.
| Manufacturer ID | Max Write Speed |
Write Time | ||
| DIGISTOR 25GB 6x BD-R DL | CMCMAGBA5 | 12x | 10:55 | Transfer Rate |
| DIGISTOR 50GB 6x BD-R DL | CMCMAGDI6 | 6x | 31:02 | Transfer Rate |
| Sony 25GB 6x BD-R | SONY NN3 | 16x | 9:09 | Transfer Rate |
| Sony 50GB 6x BD-R DL | MEI RB1 | 12x | 21:43 | Transfer Rate |
| TDK 50GB 2x BD-RE DL | TDKBLDWfa | 2x | 89:31 | Transfer Rate |
| Verbatim 25GB 6x BD-R LTH | VERBATIMw | 6x | 15:45 | Transfer Rate |
| Verbatim 25GB 2x BD-RE | VERBATIM0 | 2x | 44:50 | Transfer Rate |
Aside from the problems writing to BD-R media at 16x, the BH16NS40 performed as expected in our Blu-ray writing tests. The drive wrote to all of our test media at its rated speeds or better and, looking at the transfer rates, you can see that it had no problems reading the discs back.
Performance Revisited:
Like LG's previous Super Multi Blue drives, the BH16NS40 performed pretty well throughout most our tests. While we were not able to burn a disc successfully at 16x, the drive still turned in some very impressive times with BD-R and BD-R DL media. Reading Blu-ray Discs wasn't a problem for the BH16NS40 either. The drive was able to read single layer BD-ROM's and BD-R discs at 12x and both BD-RE and BD-R DL media at 8x.
The BH16NS40 also did reasonably well in our CD and DVD read tests. Along with some fairly good seek times, the drive read CD's at speeds as high at 48x and single layer data DVD's and DVD±R media at 16x. When it came to writing CD's and DVD's, the BH16NS40 held its own throughout most of our tests and the writing quality was, for the most part, quite good. With all things considered, the LG BH14NS40 gets a solid 8 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.
