
Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1145
Plextor 708A: First exclusive look at 8X DVD+R
by Kristopher Kubicki on September 12, 2003 11:11 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
For years, Plextor took an approach to optical storage that was only duplicated by a few manufacturers. 8MB buffers, extra features and rock solid performance put Plextor on the high end of CDR and CDRW drives. Today, Plextor sent us a drive that truly claims to revolutionize DVDR burning for at least the remainder of the year, and probably some time into the next.
Back in July, Philips (DVD+R forum) officially announced the DVD+R format specification, part of which was to increase the recording speed standard to 8X. DVD+R 8X is a little different from other recording speed standards, as the drive starts burning at 6X CLV, then jumps to 8X CLV for the outer surface. So even though, technically, the drive does not obtain a sustained 8X burn, we see burn times around 8 or 9 minutes for full 4.38GB of data. What really sweetens the pie is that 4X capable DVD+R media should burn fine at 8X.
Construction
The drive came with a fairly decent bundle of media and documentation.Dantz Retrospect (Demo), Roxio DVDMax Player, Easy CD & DVD Creator 6 and one DVD+R are included in the box. Typically, we favor Nero over Roxio in terms of bundled burnware, but the contents were acceptable. Undoubtedly, ASUS’ DRW-040P/D and Gigabyte’s W0404A both come with far better bundles. One CD+R seemed kind of weak too, as most of our combo drives at least come with one DVD+R and one DVD-R. Fortunately for Plextor, there are a lot of things they are better at than bundling media.
The included documentation was excellent. However, it is clear that ASUS, Pioneer and NEC have a little more experience with “short and sweet” type documentation. One interesting item we found was that Plextor’s 60-page manual continued to misidentify DVD-R as “DVD minus R” (it’s “DVD dash R”, according to the DVD-R forum).
Click to enlarge.
Compared to some of the other DVDR drives on the market, the 708A deserves an award for design. Most noticeable is the black stripe in the front of the unit. Ejecting the tray reveals that the inner contents of the unit are black. While it might be a stretch, the 708A manual claims that the tray components are black to reduce optical distortion on the read lasers.
Similar to the Pioneer A06, Plextor cut a few holes in the rear of the unit for exhaust.
Specifications
Below is a quick overview of specifications on the drive:Plextor 708A DVD-/+R Drive | |
Interface | IDE |
CD Write Speed | 40X, 32X, 24X (CAV) 16X, 12X, 8X, 4X (CLV) |
CD Rewrite Speed | 24X, 16X (CAV) 12X, 8X, 4X (CLV) |
CD Read Speed | 40X Max (CAV) |
DVD-R Write Speed | 4X, 2X, 1X (CLV) |
DVD-RW Rewrite Speed | 2X, 1X (CLV) |
DVD+R Write Speed | 8X (Z-CLV) 4X, 2X (CLV) |
DVD+RW Rewrite Speed | 4X, 2.4X (CLV) |
DVD Read Speed | 12X Max (16,620KB/s) (CAV) |
Supported Modes | DAO / DAO-RAW 16 & 96 TAO SAO / SAO 16 & 96 Packet Write MultiSession |
Supported Formats | DVD+R (DAO, incremental, seq) DVD+RW (random) DVD-R (DAO, incremental, seq) DVD-RW (random) CD-R, CD-RW, CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-ROM XA, Mixed Mode, CD Extra Photo CD, CD Text, Bootable CD, UDF |
Access Time | CD: 130ms DVD: 180ms |
Buffer | 2MB |
Specifications on the drive are quite impressive. Aside from 8X DVD+R, also note that the drive is capable of high speed 40X CD-R (something the Pioneer A06 severely lacks), DVD+RW 4X (again, something the A06 lacks), and 40X CD read. We were a little disappointed that the drive only came with 2MB of cache. Plextor made a name for themselves with 8MB buffers on their CDR drives. It’s a shame that they did not continue the tradition with the 708A.
In fact, just by looking at the stats, the only thing we are concerned with is the DVD access time, which seems a little high at 180ms. Remember, access times are typically “best time” specifications, so testing the device might yield much higher results. Also, for whatever reason, the website access times are much lower, claiming CD response times under 100ms and DVD response times under 130ms.
Click to enlarge.
At time of publication, we were stuck with the 1.00 BIOS. Plextor has been fairly good about regular BIOS updates on their other drives, so we expect a full line of continuing support.
Testing the Drive
We used the following configuration to test our DRW-0402P/D:Gigabyte GA-7VRXUsing CD Speed 2.02 and DVD Speed, we had run a battery of read, write and rewrite tests on the drive. The following read speeds are for a pressed HP System Recovery CD.
AMD Athlon MP 2100+
2 x 128 DDR Corsair XMS 2400
Maxtor 80GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache
Windows XP SP1
Click to enlarge.
The drive has no problems with CD media, as obtaining 40X CAV was no challenge. In fact, since we only used a 70min CD, reading speeds for 80min CDs might be even closer to 48X read. However, take notice of the horrible access times. What good is a 22MB/s burst rate if it takes 339ms to seek? Below is a table of some media read times and their respective mappings in Nero CD Speed.
Average Transfer | Seek Random | Seek 1/3 | Seek Full | Media Length | |
Pressed HP System Recovery (Turbo) | 30.25X | 110ms | 116ms | 339ms | 69:18.41 |
Pressed DAE Global Underground 24 CD2 | 31.85X | N/A | N/A | N/A | 73:20.15 |
Burned PNY 48X CDR Dummy File | 31.95X | 112ms | 119ms | 119ms | 74:00.05 |
Burned Mitsubishi 32X CDRW Dummy File | 30.85X | 86ms | 110ms | 168ms | 71.28.40 |
Pressed DVD The Matrix | 6.12X | N/A | N/A | N/A | 7.82GB |
Pressed Mixed DVD The Animatrix | 6.14X | N/A | N/A | N/A | 7.92GB |
TDK 4X DVD-R Data CD | 6.03X | 88ms | 102ms | 181ms | 4.38GB |
FujiFilm 4X DVD+R Data CD | 6.05X | 91ms | 102ms | 182ms | 4.38GB |
Imation 4X DVD+R Data CD | 4.61X | 136ms | 164ms | 311ms | 4.38GB |
FujiFilm 4X DVD-RW Data CD | 4.62X | 139ms | 170ms | 316ms | 4.38GB |
FujiFilm 2.4X DVD+RW Data CD | 6.11X | 387ms | 421ms | 717ms | 4.38GB |
We never really saw the 12X DVD read claimed by Plextor. On the other hand, the read speeds certainly do not disappoint either. Typical reads ended up around 8X (6X average), which out-performs the only 4-5X capable A06. For whatever reason, the CPU usage seems slightly excessive, and we really have no idea what is going on in the DVD+RW read test.
DVD access times are very good. The drive clearly seeks on DVDs 10-15% quicker than the Pioneer A06.
PoweRec
Before we jump right into the write tests, we should take a minute to look at Plextor’s PoweRec feature. Since Plextor jumped the gun on DVD+R 8X, not all DVD+R media is capable (or not capable) of 8X. Our FujiFilm 4X DVD+R disks had no problem burning at 8X, even though they were explicitly rated 4X. At first glance, we dismissed this as “so-what?” technology, but after seeing some of the write tests on the 708A, we were instantly hooked.Rather than just identify the media at the beginning of the burn, and then dismiss what is occurring on the media itself, PowerRec actively monitors the media and the laser during the burn. Thus, if the drive is burning and starts to produce errors, the drive and laser strength decreases the burn speed mid-way. This is particularly neat in Z-CLV burns, as the Philips 8X DVD+R standard mandates Z-CLV anyway.
CAV is done similarly but instead of zones, the drive readjusts the laser and speed every minute. If the thermal circuit inside the 708A gets too hot, the drive also steps down burn speed and laser strength.
Plextor Europe has an excellent document with plenty of pictures on the technology here.
Burning
Click to enlarge.
There you have it, 8X DVD+R — exactly 8 minutes to burn 4.38GB. CD Speed incorrectly identifies the 8X Z-CLV (zone constant linear velocity) mode as 6X CLV due to PoweRec. As you may have read on the previous page, PoweRec redefines the laser intensity and spin at its own discretion.
However, we do have a complaint or two about the tiny buffer on the drive. During the above burn, we did not touch the PC at all. Below is a graph of 4X DVD+R media while we had a Microsoft Office document open. The spikes are the points where we saved the sub-100kb document. We are happy that the burn did not under-run; but, has optical storage taken a step backward?
Click to enlarge.
Below are the CD-R, CD+RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R and DVD-RW speed tests. We used CD Speed with the same configuration as the previous test.
Average Transfer | Media Length | |
Imation 52X CDR Data CD | 29.31X | 79.49.74 |
PNY 52X CDR Data CD | 29.24X | 79.49.74 |
Mitsubishi 32X CDRW Data CD | 23.78X | 73:43.00 |
Mitsubishi 24X CDRW Data CD | 23.66X | 73:43.00 |
FujiFilm 4X DVD-R Data CD | 4.01X | 4.38GB |
TDK 4X DVD-R Data CD | 4.00X | 4.38GB |
FujiFilm 4X DVD+R Data CD | 7.70X | 4.38GB |
Imation 4X DVD+R Data CD | 7.69X | 4.38GB |
FujiFilm 4X DVD-RW Data CD | 4.05X | 4.38GB |
FujiFilm 2.4X DVD+RW Data CD | 2.41X | 4.38GB |
The drive had no problem at all burning other 4X DVD+R media at 8X. Perhaps because the 8X DVD-R format is not officially standard, the 708A does not have the proper strategy logic to burn 8X DVD-R. As future BIOS upgrade to enable 8X DVD-R certainly seems feasible, it is obvious that no one will know until the DVD dash R forum gets their ducks in a row.
Full erase of a DVD+RW takes 24:23 minutes. A similar time was recorded for DVD-RW.
Final Thoughts
Plextor deserved every ounce of hype and praise for this drive. Not only did Plextor dethrone long time DVD burning champions Pioneer and NEC, they also outpaced them. Pioneer and NEC are both expected to produce 8X capable DVD+R and DVD-R capable drives in November (DVR-A07 and ND-2300A, respectively), but Plextor has the upper hand with market saturation and aggressive pricing. Consider that the Plextor 708A costs around $280 for its fall debut, we can only assume it will cost less when the yet to be announced A07 and ND-2300A actually hit store shelves. NEC should also release their 8X DVD+R ND-1500A (which is not capable of DVD-R) early November as well.As far as performance is concerned, the drive out-performs the ASUS DRW-0402P/D and the Pioneer A06 in virtually every way. Media recognition, compatibility and just raw burn times were all better on the 708A. The new Gigabyte W0404A (40X CD-R, 4X DVD+R, 4X DVD-R) is a close competitor, but unfortunately, it cannot compete with 8X DVD+R. Next week, we have some interesting optical storage solutions from Gigabyte and ASUS, but the Plextor 708A certainly raises the bar.
One other topic we might want to touch on is DVD+R in general. The DVD+R forum was slow to announce 4X DVD+R a year ago, but pulled ahead with DVD+R 8X products hitting the shelf at least 2 months before DVD-R 8X. Considering drives like the 708A don’t even need 8X verified media to obtain 8-minute DVD burn times, DVD+R will surely gain even more favor in the eyes of consumers. While the DVD format wars are far from over, Philips, HP and the other members of the DVD+R forum clearly won the battle today.
Special thanks to CompuHQ for letting us know about their Plextor 708A special. By using the coupon code "ANANDTECH10" you can save an additional $10 on the 708A.