There is an immense amount of multi standard burners out there, so manufactures must differentiate themselves from the pack. Well, MSI thinks so, and frankly we agree. Per usual, packaged with the likes of Nero, PowerDVD and Sonic MyDVD, this drive sported a feisty 8MB of cache. This buffer amount was one of the two main factors that set this apart from the Lite-On 411S.
The second and most impressive factor was the added support for the new HD-BURN (High Density) technology developed by Sanyo. Using DVD techniques on CD media, this technology decreases the length of the written pits and the track spacing. We're talking 1.2GB+ on a pathetic CD -- screw overburns. The one problem here is that only a select range of CDs will work with this. As the drive didn’t come with any blank media at all (!), finding the correct CD-R media was a hassle. None of our CDs would write, returning a power calibration error, so obviously these 'select discs' aren't too common.
Sanyo claims that because of the similarities, these discs can be read by standard DVD drives that have been firmware updated. This tech just may take off if the media support is increased.
Moving onto the DVD testing, we armed ourselves with a Verbatim 4x DVD-R disc and our two maxi-pressed zip files. It wound the clock back by 22 seconds, producing a finished DVD in a lightning fast 14 minutes 34 seconds. That's a decent leap, burning on average extremely close (5,256KB/s) to its official 4x (5,400KB/s) peak rating.
Both DVD+RW and CD-RW speeds were significantly slower than the 411S, which is something to keep in mind if you plan on regularly using rewritable media.
Dual standard DVD burners are the way to go, especially when you consider the marginal price difference to single standard. Damn cheap considering its features, if you're after a great multi-format burner, the DR4-A is a thrilling laser blaster.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012