Lite-On iHES208 8x Blu-ray Combo Drive

CD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.11.10.0 and Drag-to-Disc 5.20:

For this test I randomly generated 650MB and 700MB of files and directories to test the time it takes the drive to write and close a CD. All of the files are between 1MB and 25MB in size and no more than 10 directories deep. 

The iHES208 has a maximum CD writing speed of 48x. To reach this speed, it uses CAV, or Constant Angular Velocity. With Taiyo Yuden's 52x media, the drive started writing at about 21.80x and accelerated, reaching a maximum speed of 48.19x at the end of the session. This gave Lite-On's new drive an average writing speed of about 36.99x.

To test the drive's writing times, I wrote our test data to some Taiyo Yuden media rated at 52x. The results are below.

Lite-On's new drive did very well in our CD writing tests. Thanks to its 48x CD writing speed, the iHES208 was able to write an entire 701MB CD in 2:44.

To test the drive's writing quality I used Lite-On IT's KProbe2. Written by Karr Wang, this utility can be used to test the number of C1 and C2 errors on a disc. For these tests I used a Lite-On LTR-52246S (firmware 6S0F) and read the discs at 32x. 

Memorex 52x (CMC)

Taiyo Yuden 52x

Verbatim 52x

The iHES208's writing quality was not as good as I would have liked. While the results were excellent with the Verbatim discs, the number of C1 errors was fairly high on the CD-R media from Memorex and Taiyo Yuden. On top of that, KProbe showed a small number of C2 errors on the Memorex discs.

For the rewriting tests I created 400MB of files on the hard drive and wrote them in DAO mode using Nero. To test the packet writing speeds I copied and pasted the same files off the hard drive onto a CD-RW disc using Drag-to-Disc from Roxio. Verbatim's 24x Ultra Speed CD-RW media was used for these tests.

While the iHES208 uses CAV when writing to CD-R discs, it uses Z-CLV, or Zone CLV, when rewriting at 32x. By looking at the screenshot above, you can see that it uses a total of three "zones" to reach its maximum speed. The drive starts writing at 16x and jumps to 24x at about the 19 minute mark. The iHES208 writes at this speed until about the 41 minute mark. When it reaches this point, its writing speed increases to 32x and stays there until the end of the session.

Lite-On's new BD combo drive didn't do as well as some of the other drives in our rewriting tests. Due to its Z-CLV writing method, the iHES208 took 2:41 to write 400MB with Nero and 2:44 to do the same with Drag-to-Disc.

The iHES208 also erases at 32x. At this speed, it took the drive 17 seconds to do a quick erase and 3:35 to fully erase the disc.