Sony DRU-810A 16x DVD±RW

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.0.12 andDLA 4.95:

To test the DVD writing performance of Sony's new drive I used Verbatim 16x DVD+R, Memorex 16x DVD-R, Verbatim 8x DVD+RW and Verbatim 8x 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 16x, the DRU-810A uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Sony's new drive starts writing at about 5.6x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed as it reaches the end of the disc.

The DRU-810A 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 DVD writer performed pretty well here. While not as fast as some of the other drives when writing to DVD-R discs at 16x, the DRU-810A turned in some very good times with DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD-RW media.

To check the media compatibility of the DRU-810A, 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.

Surprisingly, the DRU-810A would not write to Verbatim's 16x DVD-R media at its rated speed. While Nero gave the option to write at 16x, the drive topped out at only 12x.

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 SOHW-1673S (firmware JS07) 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. 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-810A's writing quality was pretty good with most of the DVD+R media we tested. Aside from a few small spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits. The only real exception being Optodisc's 16x DVD+R media. When scanned with the BenQ DW1640, the PI/PIF rates jumped up considerably near the end.

Lastly, here are some results from our DVD-R test media. While the writing quality varied from one manufacturer to another, the results were pretty good for the most part.

To test the DRU-810A's packet writing performance I used DLA 4.95. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW media were used once again.

Sony's new DVD±RW performed pretty well in our packet writing tests. While not as fast as the drives from NEC and Plextor when writing our test data to disc, the DRU-810A took a little more than 6 minutes to read it back.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.0.12:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the DRU-810A, I used Verbatim 8x DVD+R DL, Verbatim 2.4x DVD+R DL, Memorex 2.4x DVD+R DL and Verbatim 4x DVD-R DL media. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

According to Sony, the DRU-810A writes to DVD+R DL media at 8x. Using CD Speed, we can see that the drive uses P-CAV to reach this speed. It starts rewriting at about 6x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at about the 0.5GB mark. It writes at this speed until it reaches the 7.5GB mark. At this point, the DRU-810A slows back down to about 6x.

Sony's new drive had no problems writing to Verbatim's 8x and 2.4x DVD+R DL media at 8x. Unfortunately, Memorex's Ritek manufactured discs would not work at anything faster than 2.4x.

The DRU-810A did very well in this test. Thanks to its 8x DVD+R DL writing speed, the drive took a little more than 15 minutes to write 8001MB of data. If you do the math, this is a good three minutes faster than the drives from NEC and Plextor and more than 11 minutes faster than the DRU-800A. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was very good with Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL media. As you can see, the PI/PIF rates remained very low from start to finish. Verbatim's 2.4x DVD+R DL media also yielded some pretty decent results. While higher than what we saw with their 8x media, the PI/PIF remained well within acceptable limits.

The results with Memorex's Ritek manufactured media were better than I expected. Aside from the large spike at the layer change, the PI/PIF rates remained relatively low. This spike didn't have any effect on the Lite-On SOHW-1673S. Unfortunately, the DRU-810A had to slow down to read the disc back.

The DRU-810A also features 4x DVD-R DL writing speeds. To test the drive's writing times, Verbatim's new 4x DVD-R DL media was used.

The DRU-810A wasn't as fast when writing to DVD-R DL media. In our tests, it trailed behind the drives from NEC and Plextor by as much as 10 minutes and was even a couple of minutes slower than the DRU-800A. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The DRU-810A's writing quality was pretty good with Verbatim's 4x DVD-R DL media. The PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits when tested with both KProbe and CD Speed.

Performance Revisited:

Sony's new DVD writer performed as expected throughout most of our tests. When writing DVD's, the DRU-810A turned in good times with DVD±R, DVD±RW and DVD+R DL media, but wasn't as fast as some of the other drives when writing to DVD-R DL discs. The DRU-810A was also fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it 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-810A also did pretty well in our CD read tests. With the Turbo Boost enabled, the drive had no problems reading all types of media at its rated speeds and had some very fairly seek times. Writing CD's wasn't a problem for Sony's new drive either. The DRU-810A turned in some impressive times and its writing quality was quite good. With all things considered, the Sony DRU-810A gets a 9 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.