DVD COMBO DRIVE: Nu 52XCombi DBW-521

This s a new internal IDE DVD-CD-Writer. We tested it on a P4 3.2 GHz machine with 256 MB RAM and 40GB, 7200 HDD. First of all, you may like to check its compatibility with different media before buying. We first tested it on a Moser Baer 52X media, and it wasn't able to register the correct media speed. It worked fine with 52X TDK CD-R media though. For CDRW, we used 10X CD-RW media.

In the tests, the drive gave buffer underrun errors, but thankfully, they didn't spoil the media by halting the burning process, only burn times were longer. All times were taken in Min:Sec format. It took 3:03 to burn 650 MB data on a CDR and the same time to make a 74 mins audio CD from WAV files. These are around 30 secs more than the Samsung drive we reviewed, and comparable to a slower speed Sony 48X drive. 

To duplicate a CD from a CD-drive, it took 3:36 for audio and 3:20 for data. On the CD-RW front, it took 9:10 to format a 700 MB media. The average throughput for copying a mix of data on the CDRW was only 0.33 MB/sec, while copying just WAV files was faster at 0.66 MB/s. For the DVD, it gave 11x read speed using the Nero DVD speed test, as against a rated 16X, something we've been finding in most DVD-drives. Lastly, though the performance isn't as great as other similar products, the drive's a great bargain at its price. 

Siddharth Sharma