Sony BWU-100A Blu-ray Disc Writer

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 Blu-ray Disc writers, the performance tests are normally broken down into six sections: CD read, CD write, DVD read, DVD write, BD read and BD write. 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 v3.0 and CD Speed v4.70 are used to test read speeds, seek times and CPU usage. For DAE testing, CD Speed is used to give an overall speed rating.

CD Write Tests: To test the write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 650MB and 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 Sonic's DLA 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 CD Speed v4.70 is used to test read speeds, seek 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 Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. For this, 4GB of random files and directories are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

BD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the BD benchmarks, CD Speed v4.70 is used to test read speeds, seek times, and CPU usage.

BD Write Tests: To test the BD write speeds, CD Speed's "Create Data Disc" feature is used to burn an entire BD-R/RE disc. Times are recorded.

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.

Sony's Blu-ray Disc writer performed pretty well in our CD Winbench tests. In the transfer speed tests, the drive started reading at about 16.1x on the inside of the CD and was able to reach 31.8x on the outside of the disc. While this helped give the BWU-100A a respectable overall score, its access time and CPU usage was not as low as some of the other drives we've looked at.

CD Speed v4.70 - 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.

	Sony BWU-100A	I-O DATA BRD-AM2B/U
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	24.89x 14.39x 32.83x	24.85x 14.32x 32.85x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	137ms 145ms 273ms	134ms 144ms 274ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	0% 1% 3% 3%	0% 1% 3% 4%

Sony's new drive performed a little better in our CD Speed tests. The BWU-100A started reading at 14.39x and reached a maximum transfer speed of 32.83x. Unfortunately, its seek times were a little higher than we'd like to see.

CD Speed v4.70 - 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.

	Sony BWU-100A	I-O DATA BRD-AM2B/U
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	25.17x 14.30x 33.29x	24.75x 14.34x 32.67x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	148ms 160ms 242ms	145ms 158ms 237ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	0% 2% 3% 4%	0% 2% 3% 4%

The BWU-100A 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 more than 33x.

Sony's new Blu-ray Disc drive had no problems recognizing our 99 minute CompUSA media. It read our test disc from start to finish, reaching a maximum transfer speed of 35.64x.

CD Speed v4.70 - 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.

	Sony BWU-100A	I-O DATA BRD-AM2B/U
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	18.54x 10.71x 24.43x	18.61x 10.74x 24.57x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	152ms 162ms 244ms	130ms 141ms 221ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	0% 2% 3% 4%	1% 2% 3% 4%

While the BWU-100A can read pressed and CD-R media at 32x, its CD-RW read speeds are limited to only 24x. As you can see, the drive had no problems reaching this speed in our tests.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.70 - 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 Sony BWU-100A supports accurate stream and has the ability to retrieve C2 error information from the CD, it does not cache audio data.

CD Speed	Sony BWU-100A	I-O DATA BRD-AM2B/U
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	18.66x 10.98x 24.75x 10 Yes	18.66x 10.96x 24.75x 10 Yes

While the BWU-100A had no problems reaching its rated speed in our DAE tests, it wasn't as fast as I would have liked. Looking at the scores above, you can see that it reached a maximum DAE speed of only 24x.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.70 - 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.

CD Speed	Sony BWU-100A	I-O DATA BRD-AM2B/U
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	18.46x 10.88x 24.31x 10 Yes	18.48x 10.90x 24.31x 10 Yes

While the BWU-100A was a little slower when ripping audio CD-R discs, it had no problems reaching a maximum DAE speed of 24x in our tests. So how did it do in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

Unfortunately, Sony's new Blu-ray Disc writer didn't do as well as I would have liked in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests. The drive not only failed to pass all of the on the fly copying tests, it created a small number of errors. While the BWU-100A's error correction would probably take care of them, this is something that you really don't want to see. In the advanced features tests, the drive was able to read the CD-Text, subchannel data and lead in but failed to read the lead out section of the CD.

To see how well Sony's Blu-ray Disc writer 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

The BWU-100A did surprisingly well here. By looking at the screenshot, you can see that the drive considered only 53.2% of the CD to be "damaged". On top of that, none of the sectors on the disc were 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.

Sony's new drive gave some mixed results in this test. While the scratches on the disc didn't slow the drive down very much, the number of errors was a little higher than what we'd like to see.