Introduction

Isn't it amazing how much data we get on our HD's in such a small period of time? I can't speak for the rest of you, but I myself seem to never quite have enough storage space, even with 100gig of HD! Half the time when I go through my HD to clear it out I come across about 5% of it I don't even know what it is or when/where I downloaded it from. But every now and then, I go to clear out some space and find that I don't really want to delete anything, but have to if I'm going to do that next big download. That's where a CDRW or Compact Disc Re-Writer, or as most people I know call them, CD burners, enter the picture. I've had burners since there early days, and have always found them to be a life saver in times of a shortage of HD space. The latest Drive I had was a Philips 8x, and whilst there was nothing wrong with it (unless you count the fact no software I used would burn any disk any faster than 4x *shrugs*) I was looking for something that didn't take 30-45mins to burn a disk whilst hogging all the system resources at the same time. Overclock.co.uk to the rescue! Big thanks to Pete and the Overclock crew for the review piece featured here today, the LiteOn 24x10x40 CDRW (LTR-24102B).

I was looking around the Overclock site, which is when I noticed the LiteOn CDRW. What made this burner stand out from all the others on the market were two things; Smart Burn Technology/Smart X and the price. So let's have a look at the specs shall we?

Specifications

Speed :
Recording 24X (3600KB/sec) Zone-CLV (16X, 20X@6min, 24X@16min)
Re-writing 10X High-Speed (1500KB/sec) CLV
Reading 40Xmax (6000KB/sec) CAV (16X~40X)
Interface : ATAPI-E/IDE, support up to Ultra-DMA Mode2 33.3MB/sec
Burst Transfer Rate : Support up to Ultra DMA/33 Mode 33.3MB/sec
Access Time : 120ms (typical)
Buffer Memory Size: 2MB
System Requirement : CPU Pentium 166MHz above, Memory 32MB Required ; 64MB Recommended
Supported Disc Formats : All CD-ROM formats both 8cm & 12cm discs (up to 99 min)
Supporting Fixed Packet, Variable Packet, TAO, SAO, DAO, Raw Mode.
Easy-Tray® design for both horizontally & vertically use
Gear-Driven tray disc-loading mechanism to improve reliability & life
SMART-BURN®, Smart-X, VAS

What's in the box?

In the box you will find:-
1x LiteOn LIT24102B CDRW
1x Blank LiteOn Rewritable Disk rated for 4-10x
1x Blank LiteOn Recordable Disk rated Multi Speed
1x Copy Of Nero 5.5
1x CD to Sound card Audio lead
1x packet of 4 screws
1x installation leaflet

The copy of Nero is a good idea; Nero is well known and has a well deserved reputation for features and ease of use. The copy supplied with the drive will only work with LiteOn drives, which is handy really : ) Some CDRW's come with an IDE lead, there was no lead with this drive. I'm not going to mark it down for that however, as the majority of end user's will likely have a free IDE ready and in mind to accommodate the drive in the first place. If you don't have a free IDE, then you'll need to buy one. There also wasn't any kind of manual with this drive. Ok, some might argue, "a manual for what?" and if this was a normal drive with normal features I'd have to agree. There is a leaflet that shows you how to install the drive into your PC, so what more do you need? : ) Those people who are new to burning, or even new to the words "Burn Proof" or "Smart Burn" are going to be left stumped as to what they actually mean. I had to go and look on there website for information which is no good for those without net access (yes, those people do exist) or a poor understanding of what information you can find from the net. Shame on you LiteOn! There should have been some form of explanatory text with the drive itself.

Features

The LIT-24102B is a 24x(Z-CLV) record, 10x (CLV) rewrite and 40x (CAV) read drive. So what does that all mean exactly? Well, the numbers speak for themselves, the drive can record up to 24x normal speed and it does this using the Z-CLV method. Z-CLV stands for Zone-Constant Linear Velocity which splits the sections of the disk you're recording to into parts. Each part or zone is burnt at a different speed to the next. So for instance the drive starts burning at 16x for the first zone (the one closest to the centre), next zone the speed increases to 20x, and finally 24x for the outermost part of the disk. This form of writing can mean lower quality audio disks are produced if there is a lot of drive vibration, but with the added VAS (see below) technology this shouldn't be a problem and not something you would notice anyway. CLV is the same but with out the preset Zones and CAV is Constant Angular Velocity, which basically means the disk keeps a constant and smooth increase in velocity as it progresses from the inner to the outer portions of the disk.

Ok, a lot of you out there have probably already heard of "Burn Proof" but for those that have not, I'll explain. Burn Proof, means that the drive can continue to burn a disk successfully even if it has to pause the burn process due to buffer under run. Buffer under run is what happens when your computer cannot supply a continuous flow of data to the burner. LiteOn takes this technology one step further however with there Smart Burn technology. This basically makes the drive idiot proof. Smart burn incorporates the same features of Burn proof but can also decide for itself at which speed to burn the disc based on the kind of blank media you insert. So all the end user has to do is insert a disk, choose what they want to burn and burn it! Well take a look later on in to see how well this actually works.

Another feature of the drive is Smart-X technology. SMART-X basically means that the drive will read and copy (or rip) music or VCD data as fast as possible with less errors. It doesn't matter if the disk is dirty or scratched as the drive will check if the ripped data will result in audio noise, interrupted (or pixelated) visuals etc. If so, the rip speed is automatically reduced to get the data properly off the disk and onto your chosen storage device. It will also slow the drive down and only perform at max speeds if it's really necessary, for instance watching a VCD or listening to a music CD doesn't require the full speed of the drive. This in turn will increase the life of the drive, and apparently provide better audio and visual playback. Whether or not the last is true I couldn't say, but the extended life gained is a bonus in its own right. This drive is equipped with VAS or Vibration Absorber System, which means the drive performs quieter during reading/writing operation and should produce higher quality audio disks. Which is very true, it is a very quiet drive for a CDRW, certainly the quietest I've come across. And the audio CD's I have burnt have worked flawlessly and with perfect quality and clarity to the sound. The drive is of the Gear driven type, no belts here to wear out or come loose, again extending the units lifespan.

One thing I did notice, there is no way to override these features. So if the drive incorrectly recognizes a 24x speed disk as 16x, you are stuck at 16x speed and that's that! It does also mean that if the manufacturer of the disk rates it at 16x speed, the LiteOn may decide that it can burn faster than that and set itself accordingly. A bit of give and take but I would have really liked to have been able to just go all out and warp speed once in a while at my own discretion. You can still burn at lower speeds of course.

Testing

I tested the drive with various software such as Roxio's EZCD 5, Nero Burning Rom 5.5, CloneCD 3, Fantom CD and Windows XP's built in burning abilities. The drive performed its job well in all instances, but for actual benchmarking purposes, I shall be using the bundled Nero 5.5 updated with the latest patch, and CDspeed2000 which also came with the Nero install. The media used were of 4 different types, Verbatim Data Life (700mb 16x), Amstrad (650mb Multi-Speed), Sony (650meg 16x) as well as the bundled disks, both the recordable (Multi Speed 700mb) and the Rewritable (650mb 10x).

I made an image of an Enigma Music CD for audio with Fantom CD and burnt a home video in the SVCD format of exactly 700meg (pure luck rather than design). On top of this, I used Nero CDSpeed to test the drives functions.

Ok first up are the Nero CD Speed tests

You can see clearly here the graph displaying the CAV function at work as the read speed increases as the unit reads from centre to outer rim of the disk ending at a very respectable 37x speed for reading. CPU usage is good too with a max of 8% usage.

This graph is a little different, and shows the SMART-X technology at work. The Audio disk I used here was quite frankly, scratched to bits and covered in finger prints. The drive avg's out at 20x for the reading here, slowing down in places so as to better read the disk. The image file I created worked better than the original when burnt (less scratches and finger prints) with perfect clarity. Seek times in both instances are excellent.

Now that is a very quick process. 2m 20s to create an image of my Enigma CD, weighing in at 531meg. As the drive was creating the image, I could hear it start at a low speed and gradually increase to faster speeds as per the CAV process of reading. It did this very quietly too

Now this is interesting. The full SVCD image file of my home movie (79m20s) burn in 4m38s, which is damn fast! It did this at 20x speed however. No media I used would it burn faster than this due to the Smart Burn kicking in. Even disabling Smart Burn just meant that I was not protected from buffer under run rather than being able to override the speed settings. Still, with the proper media I should be able to burn a disk in less than 4m 15s by my estimate, which is damn fast!

As a further test, I then burnt my image file of my Enigma CD (531meg). At the same time as burning that image I was chatting in IRC, listening to the Enigma CD via Winamp and my DVD drive, had Quake III Arena running a looped demo in the background, and downloading from an ftp some map updates and demo's for Quake III Arena. The system was a little slower than usual, and the music I was listening too took longer to go from track to track (but played with out pause), but apart from that, it was all systems go. The disk burnt flawlessly in 6m 12s, which is awesome!

Final words

This is an extremely good drive, and despite its shortcomings with the speed selection, I would recommend this drive to anyone. One BIG thing I have yet to mention is the price. Maybe the lack of documentation and data cable had a hand in this but you cannot escape from the fact that this is one cheap drive. Overclockers are selling this drive at the moment for less than £90 and I have seen this same drive for sale on American retailer sites for less than $90. Now that is awesome value for money. The Smart Burn takes all the mystery and worry out of the process, allowing you to continue doing other things whilst your computer happily makes you a cd in less than 6 minutes (hell, I'm listening to the same music I'm burning whilst writing this review and downloading game maps via ftp all at the same time right now! And yes, the disk turned out flawlessly). Smart X and VAS will reduce the noise of the drive whilst providing you with the fastest ripping possible and highest quality disks. Nero is very good software, and comes bundled with the drive, and the drive quite happily works with all the other authoring software I've used too. The only real bad points about this drive is the total lack of documentation and the inability to create disks at maximum speed if the drive decides the media shouldn't be burnt at full whack.

All in all, an awesome drive, if your looking for a new CDRW or even your first, this unit will take away any misgivings/fears about burning you may have and should last you for years to come. Big, big thanks to Overclock.co.uk for the review sample.

Pros: Damn fast, damn cheap, easy to use, almost idiot proof, works with multiple software

Cons: No IDE cable, No documentation, No manual settings for speed

If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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