Is a 24X CD-RW Really Three Times Faster Than An 8X? How Does It Compare To A 16X?

December 10th, 2001
by rob ART morgan, Bare Feats Mad Scientist

Formac sent me their 24X CD-RW. I've heard that even with a 24X rated CD blank, you can't burn the whole CD at that speed. And with the housekeeping and internal disk activity, does the user really see the full 24X? What about converting MP3's direct from a CD? Will 40X read speed help? Lots of questions. Here's some answers:

 

 

CONCLUSION

The 24X is only twice as fast as an 8X when burning.

For some reason I don't fully understand, the 24X does not burn CD's as fast as the 16X. If I get a reasonable technical explanation, I'll post it here.

The import speed for AIFF music files is virtually the same for both 24X and 16X drives as they both are rated at 40X read.

I caution you about paying a premium price for a 24X burner if you can get a bargain 16X that goes just as fast. The 16X CD-RW is available for as little as $179 at SmallDog.com. They have bargains on 24X and 32X as well.

 

READER THEORIES FOR WHY THE 24X BURNED JUST AS FAST AS THE 16X.

1. The 24X burner "decided" the TDK 24X rated CD's weren't really 24X.

2. The firmware in the QueFire 16X is superior to the Formac 24X.

3. Toast Titanium "likes" the QueFire better than the Formac.

4. The spindle speed doesn't allow the burners to burn at 24X except on the outer portion of the disc.

One reader did a 24X burn with an IDE burner under OS X in 147 seconds (600MB). A Pentium 4 PC with 24X IDE burner did my 700MB test in 249 seconds. So now there is one more theory:

5. IDE burners burn faster than FireWire.

Obviously, I have more burn testing to do to uncover the real reason.

 

OTHER COMMENTS

I continue to be amused at the CD-RW case designs by the various companies. They look sleek and rounded with interesting colors and plastics. Then you open the front hatch and hiding inside is an ordinary looking beige CD-RW drive peering back. Smoke and mirrors!

The Formac drive had a noisy fan. You won't notice it when your G4 tower is running but owners of the Cube, iMac, PowerBook and iBook might find the noise obtrusive. (Formac thinks the fan in the test unit might be defective.)

 

TEST NOTES

The test "mule" was an Apple Power Mac G4/800MP running OS 9.2 with disk cache set to 512K (to diminish effect of system caching), AppleTalk OFF, Virtual Memory OFF, and Extensions set to minimal (BASE).

TEST DRIVES:

Apple's standard SuperDrive that comes with the 800MP. It is rated at 8X write, 4X rewrite, 24X read. Of course, it's claim to fame is that it reads and writes DVD as well.

Formac's CDRW 24 "Burn Proof." 24X write, 10X rewrite, 40X read FireWire drive. Priced at $229 if you buy direct. They are taking orders for the 32X at $299 which is scheduled to ship in January.

QPS's QueFire! (QPCDRW161040FEM) 16X write, 10X rewrite, 40X read FireWire drive.

TEST PROCEDURES:

iTunes 2.02 was used to import 13 tunes from a CD (converting them from AIFF to MP3 in Quality Mode). The total time of the Audio CD used for importing was 67 minutes.

Toast 5.01 "Titanium" was used to burn a 700MB CD using the iMusic folder that resides in the Documents folder. It contained xx tunes in MP3 format.

In both tests, a stopwatch was used to measure the total time to the nearest whole second.

 

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© 2001 Rob Art Morgan.
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