Reading and Ripping

First, I’ll test out read performance.

As you can see from the charts, the drive achieves both its rated 16x DVD read speed as well as its 40x CD read speed. Averages for both are very reasonable, with 12x and 30x respectively. You can also see that the drive falls below its rated seek times, with DVDs coming in at 106ms and CDs at 100ms. The CPU Usage for reading DVDs is much higher compared to reading CDs. If you look at the bottom of the charts, you can see that load and recognition times were lower for DVDs then those for CDs, which is interesting. Clearly ASUS is tweaking the drive for DVDs, more so then CDs.

Next let’s take a look at ripping performance. I grabbed a single layer DVD from my collection and used Nero Image Recorder to copy an exact image of the DVD to my hard drive. The ASUS was able to rip 4.29GB to my drive in only 5:12, a very impressive time.

I wanted to compare this to CD ripping, so I popped in a music CD and again used Nero Image Recorder. The 45minute music CD ripped into a 456MB image in just 2:01, another impressive time.

But enough about reading and ripping; let’s see how the ASUS burns discs.