Iomega External Super DVD Writer

If you’re looking at sharing a DVD writer among multiple users, then this drive is an option. It’s an external DVD writer with a USB 2.0 interface that supports all DVD and CD writing formats, including DVD-RAM (Type II). It can write DVD+R and DVD-R media at 4X and read DVDs at 12X. Its rewrite speeds are 2.4X and 2X for DVD+R and —R respectively.

DVD-RAM writing is supported at 3X. On the CD front, it can write at 24X, rewrite at 16X and read at 32X. 

We tested the drive on an Intel 865 based motherboard, a P4 3 GHz CPU, 512 MB dual channel DDR memory and a Samsung 5400 rpm hard drive. We did all DVD tests on 4X DVD+R and 2X

DVD-R media. It took 14 mins and 50 secs to burn 4.3 GB of data at 4X on a 4X DVD+R media, which is very good. It took 50 secs to format a DVD+RW using InCD-6. DVD-RW copying speed however was slow. It took an hour and six mins to copy 4.3 GB data on a 4X DVD+RW media. Coming to the CD tests, it took about 5 mins to burn 650 MB of data on 48X CD-R media. It took nearly the same time to burn 74 mins of audio and to duplicate a data CD, which is very good. Audio CD duplication, however, took longer at 6 mins and 47

secs. 

The drive comes with Iomega’s own HotBurn–software for burning CDs and Iomega Automatic Backup. On the whole, a good drive if you want to share DVD and CD writing capabilities in your office. 

Sanjay Majumder and Siddharth Sharma