• PC World
• » Storage
• » Hard Drives

After years of promises, DVD+RW drives from HP, Philips, and Sony have finally shipped. The good news? All store up to 4.7GB of data per disc and rewrite discs more than twice as fast as rival Pioneer's DVR-A03 DVD-R/RW drive (which uses another rewritable-DVD format). They also run rings around their rivals in writing CD-R/RW. The bad news? Unlike the Pioneer drive, they can't write to write-once DVD media.

Write-once discs, such as the DVD-R discs used by the Pioneer, are typically made from what's known as high-reflectivity media, and so are far more compatible with the huge installed base of DVD movie players and DVD-ROM drives. Vendors wouldn't give us a hard estimate, but our best guess is you have a 50-50 chance that an older player or drive will read a DVD+RW disc (or one of the DVD-RW discs that the Pioneer uses).

The DVD+RW Alliance is aware of this problem and has put together a spec for its own write-once disc called DVD+R. And DVD+RW drive manufacturers are rumored to be including DVD-R support in future models. Unfortunately, you cannot retrofit the current crop of DVD+RW drives with +R or -R capability.

Pick Your DVD+RW

Still, the speed and the capacity of DVD+RW drives make them excellent backup devices and all-in-one optical drive solutions. We test-drove three new drives: HP's $500 DVD100i (we looked at a preproduction model in the November 2001 issue), Philips's $599 DVD+RW ReWriter, and Sony's $549 DRU110A/C1.

All three live up to their specs, writing DVD+RW at 2.4X, CD-R at 12X, and CD-RW at 10X; they read CD-ROM at up to 32X and DVD-ROM at 8X. (For CD media, 1X equals 150 KBps; for DVD, 1X equals 1.38 MBps.) In contrast, the Pioneer writes DVD-RW at 1X, CD-R at 8X, and CD-RW at 4X. The DVR-A03's reads are also fairly modest, handling CD-ROM at up to 24X and DVD-ROM at 4X. (Note: The box of the Philips model claims 2.5X DVD+RW writes; however, that drive writes at the same 2.4X speed as the Sony and HP.)

For all of the drives, the installation procedure is problem-free. The only significant difference between the three products is their bundled software. The HP DVD100i is packaged with RecordNow for the mastering chores, DLA (Drive Letter Access) for packet writing, Simple Backup for, well, backup, and PowerDVD for playing DVD movies. Sony's DRU110A/C1 lacks backup software but comes with the B's Recorder mastering program, B's Clip for packet writing, and WinDVD for DVD movies. Philips's DVD+RW ReWriter ships with Nero 5 for mastering, InCD for packet writing, and PowerDVD for movie playback; it too lacks backup software. In addition, all provide Sonic's MyDVD for importing or capturing video, burning DVD movies, and storyboarding. In our opinion, HP's bundle is the most feature-rich and the easiest to use, though Nero is by far the most powerful mastering program.

The street prices for these three DVD+RW drives hover around $525; the Pioneer DVR-A03 sells for less than $450. If speedy backup is your primary concern, a DVD+RW drive might be in order, even though the DVR-A03 is both cheaper and more compatible. Most users, however, should probably wait another generation to get both speed and better compatibility.

SUMMARY

Hewlett-Packard DVD100i An excellent performer and the cheapest of the three drives here. Also has the best software bundle of the trio. List: $500

SUMMARY

Philips DVD+RW ReWriter Speedy rewritable-DVD drive is an excellent choice for backup duties, but its software bundle lacks a backup utility. List: $599

SUMMARY

Sony DRU110A/C1 Nice rewritable-DVD drive with speed to spare for backups; however, it too lacks bundled backup software. List: $549

• See more like this:
• DVD,
• DVD+RW,
• rewritable,
• rewriteable,
• DVD-RW,
• DVD-R,
• Hewlett-Packard,
• HP,
• Philips,
• Sony,
• Pioneer,
• burn,
• record