Sony DRU-840A 20x DVD±RW/RAM

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

To test the DVD writing performance of Sony's new drive I used Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD+R, Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD-R, Verbatim 8x DVD+RW and Verbatim 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 DRU-840A uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Sony's new drive starts writing at about 8.4x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The DRU-840A also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. While the drive uses CLV when writing to DVD-RW media, it uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum DVD+RW writing speed.

Sony's new "Super Multi" drive performed very well in our DVD writing tests. The DRU-840A turned in some of the fastest DVD±R and DVD±RW writing times we've seen, beating the drives from Lite-On and LG by a small margin.

To check the media compatibility of the DRU-840A, 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 DRU-840A's writing quality was fairly good with most of the DVD+R media we tested. In most cases, the PI/PIF rates stayed well within acceptable limits. Surprisingly, the worse results came from Taiyo Yuden's 16x DVD+R media. When scanned with the BenQ DW1640, the PI rate was a lot higher than we'd like to see.

Lastly, here are some results from our DVD-R test media. With the exception of Taiyo Yuden's 16x DVD-R media,the PI/PIF rates remained within acceptable limits when tested with both KProbe and CD Speed.

To test the DRU-840A'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.

Sony's new drive performed pretty well in our packet writing tests. The DRU-840A turned in some impressive times when writing to DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM media, but wasn't as fast as some of the other drives when reading the data back.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.10.1.0:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the DRU-840A, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from MAM-A, 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.

While the DRU-840A is able to write to DVD+R DL media at 12x, discs capable of this speed have not gone into mass production yet. Once 16x DVD+R DL media starts to ship, I'll go back and rerun these tests. In the meantime, here are some results with media that is currently available

When writing at 10x, Sony's new drive took a little more than 13 minutes to write 8001MB of data. While this wasn't enough to top the SH-S203B, the DRU-840A was a good minute faster than the GSA-H55L and more than four minutes faster than the LH-20A1L. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

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

The DRU-840A also features 12x DVD-R DL writing speeds. Unfortunately, media capable of these speeds isn't available yet either. Once discs rated at this speed start to ship, I'll go back and rerun these tests. Until then, here are some results with media that is currently available.

The DRU-840A performed very well when writing to DVD-R DL media. While not as fast as the drives from Samsung and LG, it took only 13:38 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The DRU-840A yielded some acceptable results with Verbatim's 4x DVD-R DL media. The PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits and there were no readability problems. Unfortunately, the writing quality wasn't nearly as good with RiDATA's 4x DVD-R DL or Verbatim's 8x DVD-R DL media. The error rates were considerably higher, especially when scanned with the DW1640.

Performance Revisited:

Sony's new "Super-Multi" drive performed as expected throughout most of our tests. When writing DVD's, the DRU-840A turned in some impressive times with DVD±R, DVD±R DL and DVD-RAM media. However, there were a few cases where the writing quality could have been better. Reading DVD's wasn't a problem for the drive either. The DRU-840A was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD±R discs at 16x and other types of recordable media at an impressive 12x.

The DRU-840A also did relatively well in our CD read tests. With the Turbo Boost enabled, the drive read pressed and CD-R discs at speeds as high as 48x and had some fairly good seek times. Unfortunately, its CD writing performance wasn't as impressive. The DRU-840A took longer than some of the other drives when writing to CD-R media and its Z-CLV writing method put it at a slight disadvantage in our rewriting tests. With all things considered, the Sony DRU-840A gets a 7 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.