BD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16:
To test the BD writing performance of Sony's new drive I used BD-R, BD-R DL and BD-RE media from Sony, TDK and Verbatim. To get the writing times, CD Speed's "Create Data Disc" feature was used. I also ran the discs through CD Speed's transfer rate test to make sure that the BDX-S500U could read them back.
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The BDX-S500U is the first portable drive from Sony that can write to BD-R media at 6x. By looking at the screenshot above, you can see that Sony's new drive starts writing at about 2.59x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.
| BD-R | BD-RE | BD-R DL | |
| Sony BDX-S500U | 21:57 | 45:37 | 61:10 |
With a maximum BD-R writing speed of 6x, the BDX-S500U wasn't nearly as fast as some of the desktop Blu-ray Disc writers we've looked at recently. Nevertheless, the drive performed very well, taking less than 22 minutes to burn an entire 25GB disc. Sony's new drive didn't disappoint when writing to BD-R DL media either. Thanks to its 4x writing speed, the BDX-S500U took a little more than an hour to burn an entire 50GB worth of data.
| Manufacturer ID | Max Write Speed |
Write Time | ||
| Sony 25GB 6x BD-R | SONY NN3 | 6x | 21:57 | Transfer Rate |
| TDK 50GB 6x BD-R DL | TDKBLDRFD | 4x | 61:10 | Transfer Rate |
| TDK 50GB 2x BD-RE DL | TDKBLDWfa | 2x | 90:46 | Transfer Rate |
| Verbatim 25GB 4x BD-R | VERBATIMc | 4x | 30:38 | Transfer Rate |
| Verbatim 25GB 2x BD-R LTH | VERBATIMw | 2x | 46:03 | Transfer Rate |
| Verbatim 25GB 2x BD-RE | VERBATIM0 | 2x | 45:37 | Transfer Rate |
The BDX-S500U completed our Blu-ray writing tests without any problems. The drive wrote to all of our test media at its rated speeds and, looking at the transfer rates, you can see that it had no problems reading the discs back.
Performance Revisited:
Sony's new portable Blu-ray Disc writer performed as expected throughout most of our tests. The BDX-S500U turned in some relatively good times when writing to BD-R and BD-R DL media and was able to read Blu-ray Discs at speeds as high as 6x. The drive also did reasonably well in our CD and DVD read tests. It read CD's at speeds as high at 24x and single layer DVD's at 8x. Writing CD's and DVD's wasn't a problem for the BDX-S500U either. For a portable drive, it turned in some respectable times and the writing quality was fairly good for the most part. With all of these things considered, the Sony BDX-S500U gets a solid 8 out of 10 for its performance.
