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Burning Ring of Fire

We put the 30 drives in our roundup through the wringer. Assignments included copying a 650MB image file, writing 650MB of files on the fly, using packet writing to copy 100MB of data files onto disc, installing Microsoft Office 2000 Small Business Edition, extracting audio from a music CD, and multitasking while burning a CD. All of these tasks and more were performed on our test system--a Dell Dimension 4100 Pentium III-933 with 128MB of RAM, running Windows 98 SE--and we enabled the IDE driver's direct memory access settings for drives whose manuals recommended it.

All 30 CD-RW drives we tested for our roundup are internal drives that use an IDE interface (if you're considering an external drive for portability, see " The Best USB Drives."). A handful of manufacturers, such as Yamaha, continue to offer SCSI drives, but most have phased out that connection interface since SCSI no longer offers a sizable performance gain.

We encountered only two unusual installation issues during our tests, both with TDK's drives. Though its performance and features boosted it into the number two spot on our chart, the TDK 24/10/40 VeloCD ReWriter wouldn't work to its full potential with our test system until we downloaded the latest Intel IDE driver (version 6.10). Not every user will encounter this problem, however, and TDK does address the issue on its Web site.

Meanwhile, oddly, we had to install TDK's fourth-place 16/10/40 VeloCD ReWriter as master, not slave, on our test system, requiring some additional steps during setup (all of the other drives in this roundup were connected, or "slaved," to the system's existing CD-ROM drive). We had no difficulty installing the drive when it was slaved to another TDK CD-RW drive. TDK could not explain why that happened (and we've also seen it occur with drives from other vendors); most users should not have any difficulties.

With other drives, some aberrant test results indicated potential software compatibility issues. For example, the $180 Yamaha LightSpeed CRW2100EZ took an abysmal 2 minutes, 44 seconds (about a minute longer than the average drive) to copy 100MB of files to CD-RW disc with packet writing, using Adaptec DirectCD 3.0; QPS's Que CD-RW, which has the same hardware and software, performed similarly.

Neither Yamaha nor QPS could provide a fix or an explanation for this anomalous performance. All of Pacific Digital's drives performed poorly in our CD-RW write tests too, taking two to three times longer to write 100MB to disc using NTI FileCD. NTI confirmed that some CD-RW drives take longer than others to close a write session using FileCD.

The Speed Pack

Drives rated at 16X and faster (for CD-R) dominated our Top 10. Not surprisingly, drives like HP's 12X/8X/32X CD-Writer 9510i couldn't match the write performance of our Best Buys, Yamaha's CRW2200EZ (rated at 20X/10X/40X) and TDK's 24/10/40 VeloCD. The three 12X drives that make the grade do so thanks to great documentation and either a bargain price (the ninth-ranked, $140 LG Electronics CED-8120B and the tenth-ranked, $150 Imation CD Burn-R CRW1208A), or outstanding capacity (Sony's Double Density CRX200E/A1, in eighth).

We required that drives be available through October 2001 to be eligible for placement on this month's chart; this proviso disqualified several good performers (and good values) from our test batch of 30. But the models now in their sunset months have made past charts; see our list of related articles to read more about CD-RW. Many of these drives will still be available through online retailers when you read this story; they'll probably be inexpensive too, since newer technologies--including the coming flood of 20X and 24X drives--will crowd the field.

Our number one drive and Best Buy is Yamaha's 20X/10X/40X speedster, the $230 LightSpeed CRW2200EZ. This unit was the fastest drive on the chart at using packet writing to copy data to CD-RW and at extracting digital audio; it was the second-fastest at writing our 650MB test image to CD-R. The CRW2200EZ finished a disappointing eighth in installing Microsoft Office, but that wasn't enough to prevent it from capturing the top spot. Yamaha enhances the drive's appeal with a terrific software bundle: Ahead Nero Burning ROM, Adobe PageMill, Adobe PhotoDeluxe, and MusicMatch Jukebox.

Nipping at the LightSpeed's heels is our other Best Buy, TDK's $245 24/10/40 VeloCD ReWriter. This roundup's fastest overall performer, it wrote our 650MB image file to CD-R in 4 minutes--more than 40 seconds faster than the Yamaha CRW2200EZ, and over a minute faster than the average 16X-rated drive. The 24/10/40 VeloCD took only 4 minutes, 12 seconds to write the same 650MB on the fly--37 seconds less than the Yamaha and over a minute less than the average 16X-rated drive. The drive kit comes with a great software bundle and has one of the best installation routines we've seen (including a how-to video).

Plextor's $185 PlexWriter 16/10/40A is a strong third thanks to easy installation, good performance, and a well-deserved reputation for reliability and media compatibility. Another plus is the PlexWriter's excellent software bundle: It includes Plextor's AudioFS drivers--for extracting audio via the standard Windows interface--which are part of Plextor Manager 2000, a handy system tray toolbox.

In fourth is TDK's $180 16/10/40 VeloCD ReWriter. A strong all-around performer, this drive was hurt by an installation glitch (discussed earlier) that forced us to install the drive only as master.

Our fifth-ranked drive is Sony's $200 CRX1611/82U, another general-use 16X/10X/40X drive. This model's most noteworthy feature is its inclusion of excellent software for backing up your system.

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