Sony Optiarc AD-7260S 24x DVD±RW/RAM

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.11.10.0 and Drag-to-Disc 9.0:

To test the DVD writing performance of Optiarc's new drive I used Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD+R, Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD-R, Verbatim 8x DVD+RW and Verbatim 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 24x, the AD-7260S uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Optiarc's new drive starts writing at about 10x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The AD-7260S also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. In both cases, the drive writes at its maximum writing speed throughout the entire session.

The AD-7260S performed fairly well in our DVD writing tests. While the drive lagged a few seconds behind the iHAS424 and AD-7240S, it turned in some respectable times with DVD±R and DVD±RW media.

While Optiarc has a list of recommended media on its website, I wanted to see for myself how well the AD-7260S worked with some of the DVD+R and DVD-R discs 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. 

So what about writing quality? 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 SHM-165H6S (firmware HS0E) 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 AD-7260S's writing quality was pretty good with most of the DVD+R media I tested. In most cases, the PI/PIF rates stayed well within acceptable limits. The only exception being MBI's 16x DVD+R media. When tested with KProbe and CD Speed, the PI rate was fairly high throughout the entire disc.

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 AD-7260S's packet writing performance I used Drag-to-Disc 9.0. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 12x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

The AD-7260S had no problems holding its own when reading and writing to DVD+RW and DVD-RW media. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as fast as the other drives when writing to DVD-RAM media and took nearly 16 minutes to write 4GB of data.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.11.10.0:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the AD-7260S, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from Verbatim, Memorex and Moser Baer. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

While Lite-On's new drive is capable of writing to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media at 12x, its speeds were limited to 8x with Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL discs. As a result, the AD-7260S took more than 19 minutes to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

Performance Revisited:

Like Optiarc's previous DVD writers, the AD-7260S performed pretty well throughout most of our tests. While not as fast as some of the other drives when writing to DVD±R DL and DVD-RAM discs, it turned in very good times with DVD±R and DVD±RW discs. The AD-7260S was also fairly quick when reading DVD's.  In our tests, the drive was able to read single layer data DVD's and DVD±R media at 16x and DVD±RW media at a respectable 13x.

The AD-7260S also did relatively well in our CD read tests. While its seek times were a little higher than I would have liked, the drive was able to read pressed and CD-R media at speeds near 48x and rip audio CD's at 40x. Unfortunately, The AD-7260's CD writing performance wasn't as impressive. The drive took longer than some of the others when writing to CD-R media and its Z-CLV writing method put it at a slight disadvantage in our rewriting tests. With all things considered, the Sony Optiarc AD-7260S gets a solid 8 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.