I have a 16X DVD burner, and a 16X DVD-ROM drive. Both are attached to their own SATA channels.

Today I tried burning some copies of a DVD-R with 3.8 GB worth of data on it. I used a Verbatim 16X DVD+R disc (Taiwan) and it took 10 minutes to do an on-the-fly copy. Then I used a Verbatim 16X DVD-R disc (Taiwan) and it took 10 minutes to do an on-the-fly copy. Roxio said that it was burning at around 6X-7X, so I'm wondering why it wasn't closer to 16X?

How fast can your other device read the source disc?

The DVD-ROM can't read as fast as the dvd-recorder can write.

I just did a test - I copied 6 files from a DVD onto my hard drive. Each file was 1.0 GB, so that was a total of 6.0 GB being copied. It took 15 minutes, so the transfer rate was about 6.7 MB/s, which is less than 6X.

So why is my drive transferring at less than 6X when it's a 16X drive? Does the type of cable matter? I used a regular SATA cable, not a SATA II cable. I read that regular SATA has a maximum transfer rate of 1.5 Gbit/s, which comes out to 187.5 MB/s, so that should be more than enough to transfer at 16X.

BTW, the drive is an ASUS E616A3T.

Is your DMA enabled?

Where do I set the DMA? This is a SATA drive, not IDE.

Hi
Welcome on board sl_dvd.
Need more information.
The SATA channels are they on your motherboard. PCI SATA Controller card. Make & model of either/both?

Yes the SATA channels are on the motherboard. This is a Dell computer, with an Intel E8200 cpu, I'm not sure what make the motherboard is.

Post a Transfer Rate Test of Nero Disc Speed.

My guess is that your drive is rip locked.

Edit: Try flashing the latest firmware from
http://support.asus.com/download/dow...el=DVD-E616A3T

I don't know the specs of your reader, but it's possible that it reads DL discs slower. Also, with CAV you don't get to read at max speed the whole disc. Reading speeds also depend on the condition of the disc.

Here are the results from the Create Data Disc using Nero DiscSpeed on my DVD burner drive:

Nero CD Speed Test results

General Information
Operating System Professional (6.00.6000 )
Drive PBDS DVD+-RW DH-16W1S
Firmware Version 2D14
Serial Number
Disc DVD-R
MID MCC 03RG20
Capacity 4.38 GB

Write Transfer Rate
Write Mode DAO
Start 6.75x
End 12.45x
Average 11.98x
Type CAV



Log
Time Elapsed Action
[22:32:50] Disc: Blank DVD, 4.38 GB, MCC 03RG20
[22:32:50] Drive: PBDS DVD+-RW DH-16W1S 2D14
[22:32:50] Disc: Blank DVD, 4.38 GB, MCC 03RG20
[22:33:15] Creating Data Disc
[22:39:11] 5:57 Speed:7-12 X CAV (11.98 X average)

Here are the results of the "Run Test > Selected" on my DVD burner drive:

Nero CD Speed Test results

General Information
Operating System Professional (6.00.6000 )
Drive PBDS DVD+-RW DH-16W1S
Firmware Version 2D14
Serial Number
Disc DVD-R
MID MCC 03RG20
Capacity 4.38 GB

Transfer Rate
Start 5.28x
End 16.05x
Average 11.96x
Type CAV



Seek Times
Random 132 ms
1/3 130 ms
Full 205 ms

CPU Usage
1X 3 %
2X 7 %
4X 22 %
8X n/a

Interface
Burst Rate 75422 KB/sec

Spin Up/Down Times
Spin Up Time 0.00 sec
Spin Down Time 2.27 sec

Load/Eject Times
Load Time 1.09 sec
Eject Time 1.40 sec
Recognition Time 13.05 sec

Log
Time Elapsed Action
[22:32:50] Disc: Blank DVD, 4.38 GB, MCC 03RG20
[22:32:50] Drive: PBDS DVD+-RW DH-16W1S 2D14
[22:32:50] Disc: Blank DVD, 4.38 GB, MCC 03RG20
[22:33:15] Creating Data Disc
[22:39:11] 5:57 Speed:7-12 X CAV (11.98 X average)
[23:10:42] Starting transfer rate test
[23:15:43] 5:01 Speed:5-16 X CAV (11.96 X average)
[23:15:43] Starting access times test
[23:15:56] Random Access: 132 ms
[23:16:09] 1/3 Access: 130 ms
[23:16:30] 0:47 Full Access: 205 ms
[23:16:30] Starting CPU usage test
[23:16:45] CPU usage at 1X: 3 %
[23:17:00] CPU usage at 2X: 7 %
[23:17:16] CPU usage at 4X: 22 %
[23:17:38] 1:08 CPU usage at 8X: n/a
[23:17:38] Starting burst rate test
[23:17:40] 0:02 Interface burst rate: 74 MB/sec (75422 KB/sec)
[23:17:40] Starting spin-up/down test
[23:17:46] Spin-up time: 0.00 seconds
[23:17:58] 0:18 Spin-down time: 2.27 seconds
[23:17:58] Starting load/eject test
[23:17:59] Eject time: 1.40 seconds
[23:18:01] Load time: 1.09 seconds
[23:18:14] 0:16 Recognition time: 13.05 seconds

Here are the results of the "Run Tests > Selected" on my ASUS DVD-ROM drive:

Nero CD Speed Test results

General Information
Operating System Professional (6.00.6000 )
Drive ASUS DVD-E616A3T
Firmware Version 1.12
Serial Number
Disc DVD-R
MID  0@P !
Capacity 4.38 GB

Transfer Rate
Start 4.20x
End 10.07x
Average 7.48x
Type CAV



Seek Times
Random 102 ms
1/3 122 ms
Full 186 ms

CPU Usage
1X 7 %
2X 11 %
4X 33 %
8X 56 %

Interface
Burst Rate 68123 KB/sec

Spin Up/Down Times
Spin Up Time 1.17 sec
Spin Down Time 3.20 sec

Load/Eject Times
Load Time 1.64 sec
Eject Time 1.66 sec
Recognition Time 3.99 sec

Log
Time Elapsed Action
[23:37:52] Disc: DVD-R, 4.38 GB,  0@P !
[23:37:53] Drive: ASUS DVD-E616A3T 1.12
[23:37:53] Disc: DVD-R, 4.38 GB,  0@P !
[23:38:07] Starting transfer rate test
[23:46:07] 8:00 Speed:4-10 X CAV (7.48 X average)
[23:46:07] Starting access times test
[23:46:17] Random Access: 102 ms
[23:46:29] 1/3 Access: 122 ms
[23:46:48] 0:41 Full Access: 186 ms
[23:46:48] Starting CPU usage test
[23:47:03] CPU usage at 1X: 7 %
[23:47:19] CPU usage at 2X: 11 %
[23:47:35] CPU usage at 4X: 33 %
[23:47:53] 1:05 CPU usage at 8X: 56 %
[23:47:53] Starting burst rate test
[23:47:55] 0:02 Interface burst rate: 67 MB/sec (68123 KB/sec)
[23:47:55] Starting spin-up/down test
[23:47:59] Spin-up time: 1.17 seconds
[23:48:13] 0:18 Spin-down time: 3.20 seconds
[23:48:13] Starting load/eject test
[23:48:14] Eject time: 1.66 seconds
[23:48:16] Load time: 1.64 seconds
[23:48:20] 0:07 Recognition time: 3.99 seconds

Anyone see any problems with the Philips/Benq writer? Seems like the write and read speeds are OK, as those tests went up to 16X.

But then the read speed of the ASUS drive only went up to 10X, so wonder why that one is slow?

BTW, I did all of the tests with the default settings.

Also, I did a Disc Quality test on my Verbatim DVD-R 16X disc made in India (the same one I used for the Create Data Disc). Oh, I just noticed that the test was run at 8X. Should I re-run the Disc Quality test using either Maximum or 16X? Here are the results anyway:

General Information
Drive: PBDS DVD+-RW DH-16W1S
Firmware: 2D14
Disc: DVD-R (MCC 03RG20 )
Selected speed: 8 X
Recorder information
Drive: PBDS DVD+-RW DH-16W1S
Firmware: 2D14
Write speed: 12 X
PI errors
Maximum: 15
Average: 0.97
Total: 17413
PI failures
Maximum: 3
Average: 0.00
Total: 704
PO failures: n/a
Jitter: n/a
Scanning Statistics
Elapsed time: 9:59
Number of samples: 120010
Average scanning interval: 1.20 ECC
Glitches removed: 0

Some drives show radically different results at different scan speeds, but that last scan looks okay.

What's the official reading speed of that ASUS drive? x10 does seem low for a modern drive reading a -R disc. Maybe the drive reads at slower speeds by default, or was set to this lower speed somehow? (Try to see if you can change it with DriveSpeed.)

I have the same drive, feel the same way.
To be honest there are lot of factors which finally deliver the speed to the drive, like cpu strength etc.
All the numbers on Nero like 16x are not accurate, they never reach 16x ripping although it says.
Some liteon drives can be hacked, ASUS has no hacks as of yet to turn riplock off.
Even then it will not reach 16x all the time.

This particular drive was rated positive for it's quick access time and quietness.
Need a ripper stick to Liteon, but we are talking about a liveable difference in speed usually a minute or less off, my experience.

16x means the max speed that it can reach. The actual burn rate is variable due to the physical factors involved. Another, and probably the largest factor in speed rate is how many errors were encountered that need to be retried, by the burner, due to disk quality. Not all vendors create their disks equally. For example Sony disks used to be made by Taiyo Yuden. Now Sony makes their own and the quality is now lacking. I stopped using Sony because the quality deteriorated but their price didn't. If your ROM drive reads slower it cannot keep the buffer full and the burner will slow down to prevent buffer underruns; which used to be a big problem in the "old days."