Nu Tech DDW-081: More DVD+R madness

Name: Nu Tech DDW-081: More DVD+R madness
Item: Nu Tech DDW-081: More DVD+R madness
Author: Kristopher Kubicki

by Kristopher Kubicki on October 22, 2003 10:54 PM EST

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Storage

25 Comments | Add A Comment

25 Comments

Testing the drive

We recently upgraded our hardware test bed to allow for a more stable and powerful workhorse.

Albatron 865PE Pro II
Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz 800FSB
4 x 512 DDR OCZ PC3200 EL
Maxtor 80GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache
Windows XP SP1

Using DVD/CD Speed 2.01, we had run a battery of read, write and rewrite tests on the drive.

Our drives CD and read speeds were very similar to the Plextor 8X 708A. We noticed that CD seek times were a little higher than average, but on the other hand, DVD speeds were significantly lower. The 110ms seek time for DVD+R/W's is almost 1/3 of the Plextor 708A seeks. Our tests find the Nu Tech DDW-081 about 15% - 20% faster seeking than the Pioneer A06.

Label	Rating	Average Transfer	Seek Random	Seek 1/3	Seek Full	Media Length
Ritek 97m31s01f (Cyanine AZO)	52X CDR	31.48X	101ms	110ms	160ms	69.59.51 CAV
Mitsubishi 97m23s24f	24X CDRW	20.41X	103ms	113ms	170ms	74.41.01 CAV
YUDEN000T01	4X DVD+R	6.17X	103ms	120ms	172ms	4.38GB CLV
MCC 002	8X DVD+R	6.22X	96ms	116ms	170ms	4.38GB CAV
Ricoh RICOHJPN	2.4X DVD+RW	6.22X	109ms	120ms	182ms	4.38GB CLV

Unfortunately, near the end of a long burn or read, the drive began to rattle slightly. Although it does not seem critical, at least not yet, there is some concern that this rattle could damage the media or the drive. The eject time of the unit is a little slow — around 12.13 seconds.

Nexperia PNX7850: Powering the Nu Tech DDW-081 Burning

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edbiegler - Thursday, April 1, 2004 - link
Just bought one tonight. $99 at Computer Sonics in Seattle (Southcenter) The sales guy said the new firmware WILL support -R and +R at 8X. I haven't been home to try yet, but why would he fib. I'm running an AMD Athalon 650 w/ Win XP. Will keep you posted on success (or failure)

Ed
edbiegler - Thursday, April 1, 2004 - link
KristopherKubicki - Tuesday, October 28, 2003 - link
Thanks for the info Murse.

Here is some updated information concerning Ricoh Disks.

Media Information
Region information N/A not a DVD-VIDEO
Media code/Manufacturer ID RICOHJPNR01
Format Capacity Not Formatted
Free Blocks 405405696
Free Capacity 4.38GB(4.70GB)
Book Type DVD+R
Media Type DVD+R
Media Id Code Speed 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 8.0x 11080KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 6.0x 8310KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 2.4x 3324KBps
Linear Density Blank Disc
Track Density Unknown
Number of Layers 1

This was a Ricoh Labeled 4X that I pulled out of Best Buy yesterday. I have put the benchmark on the website.

Kristopher
Murse - Monday, October 27, 2003 - link
Nu Tech bitsetting utility available. No word yet on if it works. It was supplied by QSI in Taiwan.

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=13245
Anonymous User - Friday, October 24, 2003 - link
The only place I could find the MCC 002 media was at Amazon.com. Was $58.99 for a 20 pack. Almost twice the price as the Memorex!

Could someone post links to 4X media that is a good and is resonably priced?
Anonymous User - Friday, October 24, 2003 - link
livewarehouse has this drive for $139 including 3 day shipping >>

http://store.yahoo.com/livewarehouse/dvnt33460.htm...
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
For everyone above, I copied the wrong DiskInfo for the MMC disk. It should be:

Region information N/A not a DVD-VIDEO
Media code/Manufacturer ID MCC 002
Format Capacity 4.38GB(4.70GB)
Book Type DVD+R
Media Type DVD+R
Media Id Code Speed 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 8.0x 11080KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 2.4x 3324KBps
Data area starting sector 30000h
Data area end sector 23053Fh
Linear Density 0.267um/bit
Track Density 0.74um/track
Number of Layers 1

Cheers,

Kristopher
Murse - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
Nevermind...just copy and paste the link from #15 and it will take you to the right price. Their site is kind of screwy, after adding it to my cart, I had to hit "update" to get it to stay in there.
Murse - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
I ordered one from unitedmicro and it's waiting for me at home now. To get the $139 ($132 + 7 ship) you have to go through pricewatch. Their site lists it as $145 + ship. Navigate to DVD-ROM from the pricewatch home page, then search for "DDW 081" and the listing for unitedmicro should come up. Then navigate to unitedmicro through pricewatch. WARNING: Their resellerrating is very bad, but they are $20 cheaper than everywhere else, so I took a chance. They shipped it pretty quickly (although not the same day as ordered), but I haven't inspected the package yet. Good luck.
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
There is some contradictory information on the Nu Tech website as to the CD-RW speed of the DDW-081. The specs for the DDW-081(http://www.nuniverse.com/1_english/3_products/01_i... state the CD-RW speed is 10X. However, Nu Tech's news release on the DDW-081 ( http://www.nuniverse.com/1_english/2_new/01_01_new... states "The DDW-081 supports 8X DVD+Write/4X DVD+ReWrite 16X DVD-ROM/40X CD-Write/24X CD-ReWrite/48X CD-ROM." Furthermore, the Philips refernence literature mentioned above (http://www.semiconductors.philips.com/acrobat/lite... states the CD-RW speed is also 24x. If the drive at present only supports CD-RW at 10x, I'm wondering if a future firmware update will upgrade it to 24x?