Plextor PlexWriter 40/12/40A

When burning a CD-ROM, most CD-RW and CD-R drive users are afraid even to breathe on the system for fear of the dreaded "buffer underrun error." Such a glitch in the process means a waste of a half hour and another useless, shiny coaster that no longer impresses any guests. Enter the Plextor PlexWriter 40/12/40A: Not only is this internal ATAPI drive the first to market with an unprecedented combination of speeds (40X write, 12X rewrite, and 40X read), but it implements Sanyo's BURN-Proof (buffer underrun-proof) technology, which ensures fault-tolerant CD burning. Until now, burning a CD meant your PC was off-limits for the duration, because the risk of a poor burn is too great if you surf the Web or do anything productive while the laser is grooving out fine spiral tracks. The frequent failure rate of this delicate operation prompted us to test drives on how to increase your chances of a successful burn. We recommend that users make sure the DMA mode is engaged in the CD-RW drive (look below). But even this is not a "burn-proof" solution. The buffer underrun error occurs when the CD-RW drive's write buffer cannot be filled fast enough with the data from the source drive. When there is no more data to write in the drive's buffer, the CD burning process comes to a premature halt. Often the cause is an untimely interruption of the CPU by another application or other system resources contending for the same data bus. Irrespective of the cause, Sanyo's BURN-Proof technology promises to ensure that nothing will interrupt the CD-burning process and cause this kind of failure. In the event of buffer underrun, the PlexWriter's BURN-Proof feature (licensed from Sanyo) remedies the problem in three steps. First, it stops the burn. Second, it waits for the buffer to refill. And third, it locates the last written frame in the spiral track and resumes the recording process. Even before the BURN-Proof feature kicks in, the PlexWriter increases the chances of a successful burn with its media-detection feature, which identifies the type of CD-R blank media and adjusts the CD-writing strategy according to the media's specification.  It is easy to miss the rest of the PlexWriter's rich set of features in the shadow of BURN-Proof. The PlexWriter is one of the first 12X rewritable drive on the market. The drive is capable of 40X (maximum) digital audio extraction (DAE). And flash memory makes the drive upgradeable via the Internet. The software bundle includes Roxio Easy CD Creator, Roxio Direct CD along with and software manuals, 1 pc. CD-R media, 1 pc. CD-RW media and mounting screws. The Roxio (formerly Adaptec) software lets the user create CD-ROMs of various formats via drag-and-drop operations. Plextor Manager 2000 features many utilities -- such as Music Video Producer 2000 -- for playing music and video CDs as well as recording audio CDs. Music Video Producer 2000 can decode various media formats, including AVI, CDA, MP3, MPEG, Red Book audio, WAV, and WMA. Considering the PlexWriter's speed, fault-tolerance features, and solid software bundle, it is difficult to recommend any other CD-RW drive to mainstream users

 

Specs & Features

Price as tested	$200
Hardware
Maximum CD-ROM read speed	40X
Maximum CD write speed	40X
Maximum CD rewrite speed	12X
Interface	ATAPI
Included software	Roxio Easy CD Creator & Direct CD; Plextor Manager 2000
Maximum digital audio extraction (DAE) speed	40X
Flash memory	Yes
Buffer underrun-proof technology	Yes

 

A word about DMA Mode  We tested CD-RW drives with a variety of bus interface types — EIDE, IEEE 1394, SCSI, and USB. A significant factor is the DMA (direct memory access) mode. We tested the host system's EIDE hard disk and EIDE DVD-ROM drive (which we used as the source drive in burning CDs) with DMA mode off and then with it on. Although all of the interfaces showed a significant reduction in CPU utilization when the DMA mode was engaged, the EIDE drive was affected most dramatically. This is because the EIDE CD-RW drive (unlike ieee1394, SCSI, and USB models) has its own DMA setting, which we turned off and on to match the host system's drives. With the DMA mode enabled on the host system, all of the interfaces showed plenty of CPU headroom while burning a CD, so running another application or two didn't interrupt the CD-RW drive. When we turned DMA off, all the drives had enough CPU cycles left to run another app, except for the EIDE drive, which averaged 73 percent CPU utilization and peaked at 100 percent. EIDE drives are the most popular among mainstream users, but we've learned that some PC vendors ship systems with the DMA mode turned off, and Windows 98 by default leaves the DMA setting off for EIDE drives. To optimize your system for multitasking, we recommend that you turn the DMA mode on for each of your EIDE drives (go to Control Panel | System | Device Manager | Disk Drives | Properties | Settings). Before you do so, however, check with the drive vendor to verify that each EIDE drive and the host system's drives properly support the DMA mode.