Plextor PX-LB950UE External 12x Blu-ray Disc Writer

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 9.4.26.0 and InstantBurn 5:

To test the DVD writing performance of Plextor's new drive I used Verbatim 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R, 6x DVD-RW and 8x 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 16x, the PX-LB950UE uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Plextor's new drive starts writing at about 6.7x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The PX-LB950UE also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. In both cases, the drive uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum writing speed.

The PX-LB950UE performed fairly well in our DVD writing tests. While its Z-CLV writing method put it at a slight disadvantage when writing to DVD-RW discs, the drive turned in some respectable times with DVD±R and DVD+RW media.

To check the media compatibility of the PX-LB950UE, 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 SOHW-1673S 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. 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 PX-LB950UE'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 within acceptable limits.

While the writing quality was fairly good with the DVD-R media from HP and Verbatim, the discs from Sony and Taiyo Yuden yielded some mixed results. When tested with KProbe, the error rates were a bit high through some sections of the disc.

To test the PX-LB950UE's packet writing performance I used Drag-to-Disc 9.0. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 12x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

The PX-LB950UE performed fairly well in our packet writing tests. While not as fast as the other drives when writing to DVD-RW discs, it turned in some respectable times with DVD+RW and DVD-RAM media.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 9.4.26.0:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the PX-LB950UE, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from 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 PX-LB950UE nearly wasn't as fast as the PX-B940SA when writing to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media. In our tests, it took 18:42 to write 8001MB of data to DVD+R DL media and 19:19 to do the same with DVD-R DL discs. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was pretty good with Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL media. The error rates stayed within acceptable limits and, aside from a dip at the layer change, there weren't any readability problems. Unfortunately, the results weren't as good with Verbatim's 8x DVD-R DL media. When tested with CD Speed, there was a large error spike at the layer change which caused some readability problems.