Lite-On eTAU208 8x USB 2.0 DVD±RW/RAM

While CPU, memory, OS and other variables don't often make a huge difference, there are some nonetheless. We have a computer that is used only for testing hardware. We do this so all tests can be compared reliably.

Test System:

For DVD writers the performance tests are broken down into four sections: CD read, CD write, DVD read and DVD write tests. Each benchmark test has been run three times. The score given is an average of the three. DMA has been enabled in device manager for all IDE devices supporting it.

CD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the CD-ROM benchmarks, CD WinBench 99 and Opti Drive Control are used to test transfer speeds, access times and CPU usage. For DAE testing, Opti Drive Control is used to give an overall speed rating and is used in combination with CD DAE to see how well a drive reads scratched and dirty discs.

CD Write Tests: To test the write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 700MB to our test media. Times are recorded. To test rewrite scores, Nero is used again to time how long it takes to write 400MB of random files and directories. Then Roxio's Drag-to-Disc is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

DVD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the DVD benchmarks, Opti Drive Control is used to test read speeds, access times, and CPU usage.

DVD Write Tests: To test the DVD write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write a 4.38GB image to our test media. Times are recorded. Then Roxio's Drag-to-Disc is used to test packet writing speeds. For this, 4GB of random files and directories are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

CD Winbench 99 Scores:

The CD Winbench test is as close as we can get to testing every day usage. It fires off eight different applications using scripts. This tries to mimic the activities of a person loading these programs onto their own computer.

Lite-On's new portable DVD writer performed fairly well in the CD Winbench portion of our tests. In the transfer speed tests, the drive started reading at about 10.1x on the inside of the CD and was able to reach 21.7x on the outside of the disc. While this helped give the eTAU208 a respectable overall score, its access time was not as low as some of the other portable drives we've looked at.

Opti Drive Control v1.44 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used a pressed CD containing one Mode 1 data track. The disc is 74:38 in size and is full of data and directories.

 

The eTAU208 performed better in our Opti Drive Control tests. The drive started reading at 9.32x and quickly accelerated, reaching a maximum transfer speed of 24.02x. Unfortunately, its access times were a little higher than we'd like to see.

Opti Drive Control v1.44 - CD-R Media:

For this test I made a copy of our pressed test CD. I used 12x rated Memorex Gold 74 minute media for the tests.

 

The eTAU208 was a little faster when reading CD-R media. Thanks to this small speed boost, the drive was able to reach a maximum transfer speed of 24.60x.

Lite-On's portable DVD writer had some trouble reading our 99 minute CompUSA media. If the session on the CD was larger than 96 minutes in size, the eTAU208 would not recognize the disc correctly. Using a disc with about 96 minutes worth of data, the drive reached a maximum transfer rate of 26.09x. 

 

Opti Drive Control v1.44 - CD-RW Media:

For this test I made a copy of a pressed test CD. I used some PNY 80 minute CD-RW media for the tests.

 

The eTAU208 also reads CD-RW media at 24x. As you can see, the drive had no problems reaching this speed in our tests.

Opti Drive Control v1.44 (DAE) - Pressed CD:

For this test I used Pure Funk. The CD is almost exactly 74 minutes. This helps to squeeze the maximum performance out of the CD.

Exact Audio Copy can tell us a lot about a drive's capabilities. You can see from the screen shot that while the Lite-On eTAU208 supports accurate stream and has the ability to retrieve C2 error information from the CD, it does not cache audio data.

 

For a portable drive, the eTAU208 did very well in our DAE tests. The drive started out at 9.35x and reached a maximum speed of 24.22x.

Opti Drive Control v1.44 (DAE) - CD-R Media:

For this test I used a copy of the Pure Funk CD. It's burned onto the same Memorex Gold 74 minute media I used in the CD Speed tests.

The eTAU208 was a little slower when extracting audio from CD-R media. This time around, it reached a maximum DAE speed of 23.95x. So how did it do in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

Lite-On's portable DVD writer completed CD Speed's advanced DAE tests with an average score of 17.25x. While the drive was able to go through the tests without creating any errors, it was unable to pass all of the on the fly copying tests. If you look at the advanced features, you can see that the eTAU208 was able to read the CD-Text and subchannel data but failed to read the lead in and lead out sections of the CD.

To see how well the eTAU208 can read scratched and dirty discs, I used CD Speed's ScanDisc utility to see how many sectors were damaged or unreadable. This is a very rough, but good way to test the drive's error correcting abilities.

CD Speed - ScanDisc

As you can see, the eTAU208 considered the entire disc to be good. Contrary to what EAC indicated, this usually means that a drive is not able to retrieve error information and cannot determine which sectors are damaged or unreadable.

You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.  

Lite-On's portable DVD writer performed pretty well here. The scratches on the disc had little effect on the drive's speed and the number of errors remained relatively low.