ASUS CD-RW

ASUS CRW-1610A is the fastest CD-ReWriter we’ve reviewed, in terms of its 16x write speeds. It has an IDE interface, so installing it is simple. Its front panel has a headphone jack, volume control, two buttons for play/skip audio tracks and stop/eject CDs, and two LEDs to indicate read and write activity.

The drive comes with Nero5 for burning CDs, and InCD for using CD-RWs. To check its performance we first burnt 650 MB of data at 16x. The writer completed the task in just 5.5 min–the fastest we’ve ever got. It also burnt a 650 MB image in just over 5 min. Better yet, it burnt 15 tracks worth 59 min of audio in just under 6 min, which is twice as fast as any other drive we’ve tested. Switching to its rewriting capabilities, we carried out a full format on a CD-RW disc. It took around 14 min for this, comparable to most ReWriters. It also gave good throughputs on the CD-RW media, with an approximate speed of 1.29 MB/s.

As with most drives this, too, has a built-in feature–FlextraLink–that prevents the dreaded buffer under-run error from occurring. Overall, this CD-RW is definitely worth buying.

Sachin Makhija at PCQ Labs