Yamaha CRW2200EZ LightSpeed

WHAT'S HOT: The only 20X drive on the chart, this model took 1 minute, 16 seconds to write 100MB of data to CD-RW, 2 seconds better than the TDK 24/10/40 VeloCD ReWriter.

Yamaha bundles an excellent assortment of software: Ahead Nero Burning ROM 5.5 for CD mastering, InCD 2.11 for packet writing, MusicMatch Jukebox 6.0, Adobe PhotoDeluxe Business Edition, Adobe PageMill 3.0, and Adobe ActiveShare.

The drive uses Yamaha's SafeBurn buffer underrun protection in conjunction with an 8MB buffer. Together this combination should be sufficient protection against buffer underruns, and we saw none in our testing.

WHAT'S NOT: This Yamaha is one of the more expensive drives on our chart.

WHAT ELSE: Yamaha ships the drive with a detailed user manual and provides a one-year warranty and toll-free technical support for 12 hours on weekdays. The drive uses Partial CAV technology to burn a CD. Partial CAV enables the drive to maintain a constant angular velocity (turns per second, or spin rate) as the drive writes to the disc.

Because the drive writes the innermost circles, or tracks, of data first, the writing speed increases as the drive writes bigger circles of data. Once the top writing speed is reached, the drive switches to constant linear velocity, which slows the spin rate with each larger circle of data to keep the writing speed constant.

BEST USE: The Yamaha CRW2200EZ LightSpeed packages great performance with an uncommonly strong software bundle, but if price is a factor, cheaper drives can be found elsewhere.

SUMMARY

Yamaha LightSpeed CRW2200EZ 20X/10X/40X, IDE, internal, 8MB buffer, buffer underrun protection, Ahead Nero Burning ROM 5.5 and InCD 2.11; one-year warranty, 12-hour weekday toll-free support. $190 888/926-2426 www.yamaha.com