Lite-On iHES208 8x Blu-ray Combo Drive

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 Combo drives, the performance tests are normally broken down into five sections: CD read, CD write, DVD read, DVD write and BD read. 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 v4.7.7.16 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 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 CD Speed v4.7.7.16 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 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.

BD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the BD benchmarks, CD Speed v4.7.7.16 is used to test read speeds, seek times, and CPU usage.

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 BD combo drive performed pretty well in our CD Winbench tests. In the transfer rate tests, the iHES208 started reading at 17.9x (2680 / 150) on the inside and reached a maximum speed of about 42.6x (6390 / 150) on the outside. As you can see, this resulted in a very good overall CD Winbench score.

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - 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.

 

	Lite-On iHES208	LG BH08LS20	Sony BWU-300S	LG GGW-H20L
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	35.68x 20.74x 47.20x	36.43x 21.08x 48.18x	35.19x 20.35x 46.52x	30.94x 17.80x 40.63x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	125ms 140ms 227ms	127ms 146ms 214ms	145ms 152ms 280ms	114ms 129ms 186ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	1% 1% 2% 5%	1% 1% 2% 5%	0% 1% 5% 2%	1% 1% 8% 9%

The iHES208 didn't perform as well as I had expected when reading pressed CD's. While rated at 48x, Lite-On's new BD combo drive came up a little short of this number in our tests. On a more positive note, the iHES208's seek times were fairly good. 

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - 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.

 

	Lite-On iHES208	LG BH08LS20	Sony BWU-300S	LG GGW-H20L
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	36.46x 20.87x 48.34x	36.95x 21.17x 48.93x	35.96x 20.51x 47.65x	31.08x 17.77x 40.83x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	129ms 145ms 212ms	122ms 145ms 225ms	161ms 169ms 304ms	123ms 156ms 229ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	1% 1% 4% 6%	1% 1% 2% 5%	0% 1% 6% 2%	1% 1% 8% 10%

The iHES208 was a little faster when reading CD-R media. Thanks to this small speed boost, it had no problems reaching a maximum transfer speed of 48x in our tests.

While Lite-On's new BD combo drive had no problems recognizing our 99 minute CompUSA media, it slowed down considerably when reading it back. As you can see, the drive reached a maximum transfer speed of only 34.98x.

 

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - 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. 

 

	Lite-On iHES208	LG BH08LS20	Sony BWU-300S	LG GGW-H20L
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	30.10x 17.46x 39.79x	30.00x 17.48x 39.69x	24.85x 14.37x 32.82x	30.56x 17.74x 40.00x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	138ms 162ms 250ms	119ms 142ms 215ms	153ms 163ms 303ms	120ms 135ms 203ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	1% 1% 3% 6%	1% 1% 2% 5%	0% 1% 2% 2%	1% 1% 8% 10%

While the iHES208 is rated at 48x when reading pressed and CD-R media, its CD-RW read speeds are limited to only 40x. As you can see, the drive came very close to reaching this speed in our tests.

CD Speed v4.7.7.7 (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 the Lite-On iHES208 supports accurate stream, caches audio data and has the ability to retrieve C2 error information from audio CD's.     

 

CD Speed	Lite-On iHES208	LG BH08LS20	Sony BWU-300S	LG GGW-H20L
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	36.03x 21.71x 47.61x 10 Yes	30.25x 17.91x 39.96x 10 Yes	18.66x 10.96x 24.65x 10 Yes	30.72x 18.00x 40.30x 10 Yes

The iHES208 did very well in our DAE tests. With a maximum speed of 47.61x, it had no problems taking the top spot in our tests.

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 (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.

 

CD Speed	Lite-On iHES208	LG BH08LS20	Sony BWU-300S	LG GGW-H20L
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	35.70x 21.49x 47.07x 10 Yes	29.90x 17.99x 39.43x 10 Yes	18.42x 10.88x 24.37x 10 Yes	30.44x 17.99x 39.86x 10 Yes

The iHES208 was a little slower when extracting audio from CD-R media. While the drive still performed relatively well, it reached a maximum DAE speed of only 47.07x. So how did it do in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

Lite-On's new BD combo drive completed CD Speed's advanced DAE tests with an average score of 33.93x. The drive had no problems passing all of the on-the-fly tests and did not create any errors. If you look at the advanced features, you can see that the iHES208 was able to read the CD-Text, subchannel data and lead in but failed to read the lead out section of the CD.