Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7200S 20x DVD±RW/RAM

While CPU, memory, OS and other variables don't often make a huge difference, there are some nonetheless. We have a computer that is used only for testing hardware. We do this so all tests can be compared reliably.

Test System:

For DVD writers the performance tests are broken down into four sections: CD read, CD write, DVD read and DVD write tests. Each benchmark test has been run three times. The score given is an average of the three. DMA has been enabled in device manager for all IDE devices supporting it.

CD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the CD-ROM benchmarks, CD WinBench 99 and CD Speed are used to test transfer speeds, seek times and CPU usage. For DAE testing, CD Speed is used to give an overall speed rating and is used in combination with CD DAE to see how well a drive reads scratched and dirty discs.

CD Write Tests: To test the write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 700MB to our test media. Times are recorded. To test rewrite scores, Nero is used again to time how long it takes to write 400MB of random files and directories. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

DVD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the DVD benchmarks, CD Speed is used to test read speeds, seek times, and CPU usage.

DVD Write Tests: To test the DVD write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 4GB to our test media. Times are recorded. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

CD Winbench 99 Scores:

The CD Winbench test is as close as we can get to testing every day usage. It fires off eight different applications using scripts. This tries to mimic the activities of a person loading these programs onto their own computer.

Optiarc's new DVD writer gave us some mixed performance in our CD Winbench tests. While the AD-7200S's overall score wasn't as high as some of the other drives, its transfer rates were fairly good.It started reading at 18.6x (2800 / 150) and reached a maximum speed of about 42.5x (6370 / 150) on the outside.

CD Speed v4.7.7.7 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used a pressed CD containing one Mode 1 data track. The disc is 74:38 in size and is full of data and directories.

	Optiarc AD-7200S	Samsung SH-S203N	Lite-On DH-20A3H	LG GSA-H55L
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	35.50x 20.41x 46.96x	35.96x 20.75x 47.55x	35.81x 20.82x 47.36x	35.57x 20.47x 47.04x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	143ms 157ms 236ms	102ms 105ms 177ms	98ms 110ms 184ms	103ms 104ms 174ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	16% 1% 2% 4%	0% 1% 2% 4%	6% 1% 2% 4%	0% 1% 2% 4%

The AD-7200S didn't perform as well as I had expected when reading pressed CD's. While the drive is rated at 48x, Optiarc's new drive came up a little short of this number in our tests. Looking at the other scores, its seek times were also a little higher than we'd like to see.

CD Speed v4.7.7.7 - CD-R Media:

For this test I made a copy of our pressed test CD. I used 12x rated Memorex Gold 74 minute media for the tests.

The AD-7200S was a little faster when reading CD-R media.While this wasn't enough to top the drive from Lite-On, it had no problems reaching a maximum transfer speed of 48x in our tests. Unfortunately, its seek times were again a little high.

Optiarc's new DVD writer had some trouble reading our 99 minute CompUSA media. If the session on the CD was larger than 90 minutes in size, the AD-7200A would not recognize the disc correctly. Using a disc with about 90 minutes worth of data, I was able to reach a maximum read speed of about 48.03x.

CD Speed v4.7.7.7 - CD-RW Media:

For this test I made a copy of a pressed test CD. I used some PNY 80 minute CD-RW media for the tests.

While the AD-7200S can read pressed and CD-R media at 48x, its CD-RW read speeds are limited to only 40x. As you can see, the drive had no problems reaching this speed in our tests.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.7.7.7 (DAE) - Pressed CD:

For this test I used Pure Funk. The CD is almost exactly 74 minutes. This helps to squeeze the maximum performance out of the CD.

Exact Audio Copy can tell us a lot about a drive's capabilities. You can see from the screen shot that while the Optiarc AD-7200Ssupports accurate stream and has the ability to retrieve C2 error information from the CD, it does not cache audio data.

CD Speed	Optiarc AD-7200S	Samsung SH-S203N	Lite-On DH-20A3H	LG GSA-H55L
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	30.89x 17.71x 40.00x 10 Yes	30.93x 17.76x 40.86x 10 Yes	30.30x 17.64x 40.03x 10 Yes	31.43x 18.12x 41.52x 10 Yes

The AD-7200S did fairly well in our DAE tests. While not nearly as fast as some of the other DVD writers we've tested, it hadno problems ripping pressed audio CD's at 40x.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.7.7.7 (DAE) - CD-R Media:

For this test I used a copy of the Pure Funk CD. It's burned onto the same Memorex Gold 74 minute media I used in the CD Speed tests.

While the AD-7200S was a little slower when extracting audio from CD-R media, this didn't keep it from reaching amaximum DAE speed of 40x. So how did it do in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

Optiarc's DVD writer completed CD Speed's advanced DAE tests with an average score of 28.86x. The drive had no problems passing all of the on-the-fly tests and did not create any errors. If you look at the advanced features, you can see that the AD-7200S was able to read the CD-Text and subchannel data but failed to read the lead in and lead out sections of the CD.

To see how well the AD-7200S can read scratched and dirty discs, I used CD Speed's ScanDisc utility to see how many sectors were damaged or unreadable. This is a very rough, but good way to test the drive's error correcting abilities.

CD Speed - ScanDisc

The AD-7200S didn't handle scratched discs as well as some of the other DVD writers we've looked at recently. While there weren't any unreadable sectors on the disc, the drive considered more than 67% of the CD to be "damaged."

You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. The application extracts the audio tracks twice and then compares them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.

Unfortunately, NEC's new DVD writer was not able to complete this test. Part way through the 4th track, CD DAE would return the error you see above.