Sony DRU-830A 18x DVD±RW/RAM

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.1.4 andDLA 4.95:

To test the DVD writing performance of Sony's new drive I used Verbatim 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R, 8x DVD+RW and 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 18x, the DRU-830A uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Sony's new drive starts writing at about 7.6x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The DRU-830A also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. In both cases the drive uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum writing speed.

Sony's new drive performed pretty well in our DVD writing tests. While not as fast as the drives from LG and Plextor when writing to DVD+RW and DVD-RW media, the DRU-830A turned in some of the fastest DVD+R and DVD-R writing times we've seen.

To check the media compatibility of the DRU-830A, 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.

The DRU-830A's media compatibility was a mixed bag. While the drive wrote to most of our test media at its rated speed, only three types worked at 18x.

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-830A's writing quality was pretty good with most of the DVD+R media we tested. In most cases, the PI/PIF rates stayed well within acceptable limits. The only exception being Optodisc's 16x DVD+R media. When scanned with the BenQ DW1640, the PI rate was higher than we'd like to see near the end.

Lastly, here are some results from our DVD-R test media. With the exception of RiDATA's 16x DVD-R media,the PI/PIF rates were fairly low when tested with both KProbe and CD Speed.

To test the DRU-830A's packet writing performance I used DLA 4.95. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 12x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

When it came to packet writing, the DRU-830A's performance was pretty mixed. While it turned in some very good times with DVD-RAM media, it wasn't as fast as the other drives when reading and writing to DVD+RW and DVD-RW discs.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.1.4:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the DRU-830A, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from Verbatim, RiDATA and Memorex. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

Finding DVD+R DL media that would work at 8x was not an easy task. The only media we found that would work at this speed were Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL discs. With RiDATA's 8x DVD+R DL media, the writing speed was limited to 6x and the other discs would not work at anything faster than 2.4x.

While no match for the drives from LG and Plextor, the DRU-830A took a respectable 18:48 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality wasn't as good as I had expected with Verbatim's 8x and 2.4x DVD+R DL media. In both cases, the error rate started out fairly low but jumped up considerably on the second layer. Unfortunately, RiDATA's 8x DVD+R DL media didn't fair any better. While written at only 6x, the error rates were very high on the second layer. The worst results were with Memorex's 2.4x DVD+R DL media. The PI/PIF rates were very high at the layer change and there were a small number of PO Failures.

The DRU-830A also features 8x DVD-R DL writing speeds. To test the drive's writing times, DVD-R DL media from Verbatim and RiDATA was used.

The DRU-830A performed pretty well when writing to DVD-R DL media. Thanks to its 8x writing speed, the drive only took 19:04 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

While the writing quality was fairly good with Verbatim's 4x DVD-R DL media, their new 8x rated discs yielded some mixed results. When scanned with the DW1640, the PI rate was very high on some sections of the disc. Unfortunately, RiDATA's 4x DVD-R DL media faired even worse. The PI rates were not only very high, there was a large PIF spike at the layer change which caused some major readability issues.

Performance Revisited:

The performance of Sony's new DVD±RW was pretty mixed, especially when it came to writing DVD's. While the DRU-830A turned in some very impressive times with DVD±R and DVD-RAM media, it wasn't as fast as some of the other drives when writing to DVD±RW discs. Writing quality was also an issue as the PI/PIF rates were quite high with some DVD±R DL media. On the other hand, the DRU-830A was fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it was able to read single layer data and video DVD's at 16x and DVD±R media at a respectable 12x.

The DRU-830A also did pretty well in our CD read tests. The drive had no problems reading all types of media at its rated speeds and had some very good seek times. When it came to writing CD's, Sony's new drive gave us some mixed results. While the DRU-830A turned in some impressive times when writing to CD-R media, its Z-CLV writing method put it at a slight disadvantage in our rewriting tests. With all things considered, the Sony DRU-830A gets a 7 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.