Plextor PX-650US PlexEasy Portable 8x DVD Writer

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

For this test I randomly generated 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. All of the times below include not only the actual writing time, but the lead in and out times too. This gives a more realistic idea of how long it takes to write a CD.

The PlexEasy has a maximum CD writing speed of 24x. To reach this speed, it uses P-CAV, or Partial Constant Angular Velocity. By looking at the screenshot, you can see that the drive starts writing at 10.98x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at about the 72 minute mark. This gave Plextor's new drive an average writing speed of about 18.74x.

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

The PlexEasy took a little more than five minutes to write an entire 701MB CD. While most of the internal writers we've looked at lately can do this in half the time, this is pretty good for a portable drive.

To test the drive's writing quality I used Nero CD Speed. This utility can be used to test the number of C1 and C2 errors as well as the jitter level on a disc. For these tests I used a Lite-On LTR-52327S and read the discs at 32x. 

HP 52x (CMC)

MBI 52x

Taiyo Yuden 52x

The PlexEasy's writing quality was very good. By looking at the screenshots, you can see that the discs burned by the drive had a low number of C1 errors. More importantly, there were no C2 errors at all. 

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 InstantBurn from CyberLink. Verbatim's 24x Ultra Speed CD-RW media was used for these tests.

While the PlexEasy uses P-CAV when writing to CD-R discs, it uses Z-CLV, or Zone CLV, when rewriting at 24x. By looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the drive uses a total of four "zones." The PlexEasy starts writing at 10x and jumps to 16x at about the 20 minute mark. When the drive reaches the 42 minute mark, it changes to 20x and then to 24x at the 64 minute mark.

Plextor's portable DVD writer did fairly well in our rewriting tests.  The drive took 4:16 to write 400MB with Nero and 3:52 to do the same with InstantBurn.