I went ahead and compiled a 700MB CD and simulated a burn at 40x and it burned with no problem at all in 3 minutes and 8 seconds. The first time I did the burn I did not touch the computer, the second time I tried I heavily used my computer and saw the BURN-proof light go on and the CD burned successfully. I really love BURN-proof because I don’t have to just sit and watch my computer go I can keep on using it. I was a little worried that I would not be able to burn at 40x with the cheap media that I had but I tried with 2 differant no-name blank CD-Rs and had no problem at all burning at 40x. The PlexWriter 40/12/40A comes with one 40x CD-R which the drive liked better however it is not necessary.
I then put in a CDRW and burned a 650MB file to it the processes took 6 minutes and 18 seconds. This burn was a lot quieter than the CD-R because it was only burning at 12x. The entire burn is basically done at 12x as there is no need to work up to that speed like there is at 40x.
After I finished burning with the CDRW I went ahead and erased it, which took only 18 seconds. I don’t use CD-RW media very often because it is much more expensive than CD-Rs but if you want the ability to write and rewrite you are going to love this drive because it does both the writing and erasing very quickly.
Conclusion
This is my first time using a Plextor CDRW and I really like it. Before this I had only used Lite-On drives and find this Plextor drive to be of higher quality. Moving up from my 16x I could really see the boost in speed, as I was able to burn a complete CD much faster than before. With all the technology that Plextor packs into this little drive it makes it a great product which can rise above all other CD-RW companies in the race for the fastest and highest quality burn.
It took me only a little over 3 minutes to burn a full 80 minute CD ant 40x and only a little over 6 minutes to burn a CD-RW at 12x. I thought I might have some problems burning at 40x with generic CD-Rs, but I tried 3 different brands and all of them worked perfectly fine.
The only thing I do not like about this drive is that is a little loud. Because it has to speed up so much and burn so fast it does create a noticeable amount of noise. Also Plextor has come out with a 48x drive, which is a little faster than this one.
Overall I’m very happy with this product and am going to give it a 9/10 and award it the OCmodshop Seal of Approval. You can find this drive on Pricewatch for around $100 for the retail version. I would like to thank Plextor for sending this drive over for review.
Pros
- 40x burning
- Good software included
- Media included
- Instructions included
Cons
- 48x version now available
- It’s a little loud
