48x CD ReWriter from Asus

This drive from Asus is the fastest CD ReWriter we have reviewed so far. It has amazing rated speeds of 48x write, 16x ReWrite and 48x read. The only problem with buying such super fast drives is the unavailability of CD-R media with matching speeds in the market, which means you’ll have to suffice with lower burning speeds for now. The drive has an IDE interface 

and is simple to set up. It also offers a 2 MB buffer space, and like most drives, has its own technology called FlextraLink for preventing the dreaded buffer underrun error. Additionally, it has a feature called FlextraSpeed, which helps you choose the best possible burning speed for your particular media. Finally, to top things the drive comes with the latest version of Nero 5.5.8 for burning CDs. For ReWriting, it has InCD, which allows you to use your CD-RW as a hard drive, so you can copy, delete, and transfer files to and from a

CD-RW. 

To check out the drive’s performance, we burnt 650 MB data on to a CD-R. We used Imation 24x media for testing the

drive, due to poor availability of faster branded media in the market. It clocked a time of 4:57, which was almost at par with the other 24x drives we tested in our May 2002 issue. The fastest time there was 4:24 clocked by the Sony drive. It was also able to create a 60-minute audio CD in 4:38, which is a very good indeed.

Finally, we did a CD-to-CD copy, which took 6:58, again making it among the fastest. If the results with 24x media are anything to go by, the results with 48x media should be really good. Fortunately, the drive shipped with a single 48x CDR media from Asus. Unfortunately, it took 5 mins 17 secs to burn 650 MB of data, which is lower than what we got from Imation 24x media. This might be due to incompatibility, and the results could be better as 48x CDR media become more commonly available in the market. 

The drives’ performance in ReWriting was excellent, beating all drives we have tested till now. It took only 9:45 to fully format a CDRW disc, which is 2 minutes faster than any other drive. The nearest contender was the Yamaha 24x write internal drive at 12:04. Another interesting thing was that the formatted capacity of this CDRW disc was 572 MB as compared to 530 MB given by other drives. Finally, to transfer 100 MB data to the CDRW, it took only 55 secs, which gives it a whopping throughput of 1.81 MB/sec, compared to an average 1.2 MB/sec of the other drives. 

The Bottom Line. Its price of just Rs.7000 is what really adds the punch. The package also includes a 16x CD-RW disc and a 48x CD-R disc, so you can get started right away. 

Sachin Makhija at PCQ Labs