BillW50 wrote:

Only x8 speed? I wonder if they are still limited to this speed? As I
believe all of my slimline drives all are x8 speed.

I haven't checked recently, but I think that's still the case. I wonder if
any of them wrote Blu-ray too, wouldn't that increase the normal DVD speed? I
don't know.


And can you actually burn x8 or faster with USB? As I don't see those
speeds with USB optical drives.

Oh yes. As I mentioned before, not 16X, because in my setup, where the laptop
is connected to an external powered USB2 hub, and the DVD writer is connected to
that, the max speed to the writer is about 20MB/s, a little less than the 22MB/s
of 16X. I burn reliably with 12X on normal DVDs, and 8X on DVD+R DL. Actually I
*can* set the burn speed to 16X, and it works, but at the end of the disk the
USB can't keep up with the burner, and it has to pause. This leads to
oscillations in the effective writing speed, and to oscillations in the read
speed of the written disk (as seen with Nero DVD speed). So I *could* burn in
16X, I just prefer not to risk it.
The stupid drive boasts that it can write DVD+R at 22X. Yeah right. I'm sure
it can, when taken out of its enclosure and connected directly to a SATA cable
inside a desktop; connected via USB, no way. And it can write DVD-RAM at 12x;
that would be wonderful, if only I could find an actual DVD-RAM disk rated for
more than 5X.

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