Test System:

For CD-RW drives the performance tests are broken down into two sections: CD-ROM read and CD-R/W write testing. Each benchmark test has been run three times. The score given is an average of the three. DMA has been enabled in device manager for all IDE devices supporting it.

Read Tests: For the read performance section of the CD-ROM benchmarks, CD WinBench 99 v3.0 and CD Speed v1.02 are used to test read speeds, seek times and CPU usage. For DAE testing both CD Speed v1.02 and CD DAE are used. CD Speed is used to give an overall DAE speed rating and CD DAE is used to not only give the track by track extraction speeds but to also check the extracted tracks for errors the drive may have created.

Write Tests: To test the write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 650MB and 700MB to 74 minute and 80 minute discs. Times are recorded. To test rewrite scores, Nero is used again to time how long it takes to write 400MB of random data. Then Ahead Software's InCD is used to test packet writing speeds. The same 400MB is copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

CD Winbench 99 Scores:  

The CD Winbench test is as close as we can get to testing every day usage.  It fires off eight different applications using scripts. This tries to mimic the activities of a person loading these programs onto their own computer. 

The LTR-52327S did very well in the CD Winbench portion of our tests. In the transfer speed tests, the drive started reading at 20.04x (3007 / 150) on the inside and reached a maximum speed of about 46.73x (7010 / 150) on the outside. Looking at the other scores, the Lite-On's access time and CPU utilization were also quite good.

CD Speed v1.02 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used Dell's Windows 98 SE Reinstallation CD. Keep in mind that the disk is not 74 minutes in length so maximum speeds might be a little higher.

When reading pressed CD's, Lite-On's new 52/32/52 CD-RW performed a lot like their 52/24/52 CD-RW, the LTR-52246S. While both drives had no problems reading our test disc at 52x, neither were as fast as the 52x writer from TEAC. On the other hand, the LTR-52327S's seek times were pretty good. However, it also had the high CPU usage that we've seen with some of Lite-On's other writers.

CD Speed v1.02 - CD-R Media:

For this test I made a copy of Dell's Windows 98 SE Reinstallation CD. I used 12x rated Memorex Gold 74 minute media for the tests.

 

The LTR-52327S was a little slower when reading CD-R media. While the drive started out very fast, its transfer speeds came up short of 52x in the end.

Lite-On's new writer had no problems recognizing our 99 minute CompUSA media. The LTR-52327S was able to read our test disc from start to finish, reaching a maximum transfer speed in excess of 56x!

CD Speed v1.02 - CD-RW Media:

For this test I made a copy of Dell's Windows 98 SE Reinstallation CD. I used some PNY 80 minute CD-RW media for the tests.

 

While the Lite-On's new writer can read pressed and CD-R media at speeds as high as 52x, its CD-RW read speeds are limited to 40x. The drive had no problems reaching this speed, narrowly beating out the LTR-52246S for the top spot in our transfer speed tests. 

CD DAE and CD Speed v1.02 - Pressed CD:

For this test I am using Pure Funk. The CD is almost exactly 74 minutes. This helps to squeeze the maximum performance out of the CD.

Exact Audio Copy can tell us a lot about a drive's capabilities. You can see from the screen shot above that the Lite-On LTR-52327S supports accurate stream, caches audio data and has the ability to retrieve C2 error information from audio CD's. 

The Lite-On LTR-52327S did pretty well in our DAE tests. While the drive wasn't able to rip audio CD's at 51x like the TEAC, it had no problems exceeding 48x.

To get a better look at the quality of the extracted audio we use CD DAE. CD DAE is actually designed to be an audio ripping program. It converts the CD-DA on the CD to .wav files. We use it in our testing because it can also be used as a quick and easy way to test the quality. Where CD Speed tests the DAE as one large session, CD DAE extracts each CD track individually. It actually extracts each track twice and then compares them to check for any errors. Every error a drive creates could be a hiss or pop you would hear later in the audio tracks. 

Lite-On's new writer was a little slower when extracting our test disc with CD DAE. Oddly enough, while the LTR-52327S's maximum speed was faster than the LTR-52246S's, its average speed was actually a little slower.

CD DAE and CD Speed v1.02 - CD-R Media:

For this test I am using a copy of the Pure Funk CD. It's burned onto the same Memorex Gold 74 minute media I used in the CD Speed tests.

 

Like the other drives, Lite-On's new 52x writer was a little slower when ripping audio CD-R discs. While the LTR-52327S still had no problems reaching 48x in our tests, it was a little slower than the drive from TEAC. So how did it do in the advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

The LTR-52327S completed CD Speed's advance DAE tests with an average score of 35.02x. While not as fast as some of the other writers we've looked at lately, this score is still quite good. The drive had no problems passing all of the on-the-fly tests and did not create any errors. In the advanced tests, the LTR-52327S was able to read the CD-Text, subchannel data and even the lead in and lead out sections of the CD.
 

To see how well Lite-On's new writer can read scratched and dirty discs, I  used CD Speed's ScanDisc utility to see how many sectors are damaged or unreadable. This is a very rough, but good way to test the drive's error correcting abilities.

When I took a look at the LTR-52246S, I was a little disappointed by its performance. The percentage of the disc that was damaged was higher than we would have liked and there were even a few sectors on the disc that  the drive could not read at all. Fortunately, the LTR-52327S is much better at reading scratched discs. By looking at the screenshot, you can see that only 57.82% of the CD was detected to be "damaged". Better yet, none of the sectors on the disc were unreadable.

You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated. 

Lite-On's new CD-RW did very well here too. While the LTR-52327S slowed down considerably to read our test disc, the number of errors was very low.

Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 5.5.10.35:

For this test I randomly generated 650MB and 700MB of files and directories to test the time it takes the drive to write and close a CD. All of the files are between 1MB and 25MB in size and no more than 10 directories deep. All of the times below include not only the actual writing time, but the lead in and lead out times as well. This gives a more realistic idea of how long it takes to write a CD.

Like Lite-On's 48x and 52x writers, the LTR-52327S uses CAV, or Constant Angular Velocity, to reach its maximum recording speed. With Plasmon's 52x  media, the drive started writing at almost 23.62x and reached a maximum speed of 51.79x at the end of the session. While this isn't the 52x the drive is rated at, it was fast enough to give the LTR-52327S an average writing speed of about 39.41x. 

To compare the Lite-On LTR-52327S to some of the other drives we've tested, I used some of Imation's 48x media. 

Lite-On's new writer did very well here. While the LTR-52327S's average writing speed wasn't as fast as some of the other drives we've tested, it turned in some very impressive writing times. When writing 651MB of data, the drive was about 5 seconds faster than the 52x writer from Samsung and was even a couple of seconds faster than the LTR-52246S. 

To check the media compatibility of the LTR-52327S, I tested the drive with media from a variety of different companies. The media types, along with the average times they took the drive to write 651MB of data, are listed below. These results are with SMART-BURN enabled. .

The LTR-52327S's media compatibility can be summed up into one word: excellent. While the writing times varied by a second or two overall, the drive was able to write to all of our test media at 52x.

To test the drive's writing quality I used Lite-On IT's KProbe. Written by Karr Wang, this utility can be used to test the number of C1 and C2 errors on a disc. Unlike WSES, KProbe can give us the average, maximum and total number of C1 and C2 errors, not to mention it also works under Windows. For these tests I used a Lite-On LTR-52246S (firmware 6S0F) and read the discs at 32x. 

Other than the 48x media TDK, the results here are pretty good. None of the discs had any C2 errors on them and the number of C1 errors was, for the most part, relatively low.

Many of you have asked how well the LTR-52327S works with KProbe. To give you an idea of how it compares, I retested the discs with Lite-On's new drive. The results are below.

The results are still pretty good. However, you can see that in most cases the number of C1 errors returned by the LTR-52327S is a little higher than what we saw with the LTR-52246S. Unfortunately, the jury is still out on which results are more accurate.

ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 5.5.10.35 and InCD 3.52:

For these tests I created 400MB of files on the hard drive and wrote them in DAO mode using Nero. To test the packet writing speeds I copied and pasted the same files off the hard drive onto a CD-RW disk using InCD. 

The LTR-52327S is the first drive from Lite-On to feature 32x rewriting speeds. The drive uses P-CAV, or Partial CAV, to reach this speed. It starts rewriting at about 20.65x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at about the 27 minute mark.

Lite-On's new writer also uses P-CAV when rewriting at 24x. Here too the drive starts at 20.65x and reaches its maximum rewriting speed at the 7 minute mark.

To compare the LTR-52327S's rewriting times to some of the other writers we've tested, I used some 32x and 24x Ultra Speed media from Verbatim. The drive was first tested at 32x and then again at 24x.

When rewriting with Nero, Lite-On's new drive performed very well. At 24x, it was about 10 seconds faster than the drive from TEAC and more than a minute faster than the LTR-52246S. Of course, the LTR-52327S was even faster at 32x, chopping an additional 18 seconds off of its rewriting times.

Unfortunately, the LTR-52327S wasn't as fast when packet writing with InCD. At 32x, the drive's times were about 38 seconds slower than what we saw with Nero. I asked Lite-On about this and they really didn't have an answer for me. If I had to make a guess, I'd say that the drive uses CAV when packet writing.

Lite-On's new writer also erases at 32x. While the LTR-52327S was a few seconds faster than the other drives when doing a quick erase, its performance advantage was most apparent when doing a full erase. In our tests, Lite-On's new drive was more than 30 seconds faster than the TEAC and more than 1:30 faster than the others.

Mt. Rainier Tests - InCD 3.52:

To test the LTR-52327S's speeds when using the Mt. Rainier format I used InCD 3.52 and the same 400MB of files and directories used in the other rewriting tests. For comparison I included the scores from a few other writers we've tested that have supported the Mt. Rainier format.

Lite-On's new CD-RW did very well in our Mt. Rainier tests. Like the other drives, the background formatting had very little effect on the amount of time it took the LTR-52327S to write our test data. On average, it took about three seconds longer to complete the tests when the disc was being formatted. 

I also tested how quickly the drive could read back our test data from a Mt. Rainier formatted disc. While the LTR-52327S did pretty well here, it took more than twice as long to read the data from a disc that was being formatted in the background. 

Performance Revisited:

It's hard not to be impressed by the performance of the Lite-On's new CD-RW drive. As a reader, the LTR-52327S reached some pretty impressive transfer speeds with pressed and CD-R media. The drive also had some good seek times, but like some of their other Lite-On drives we've tested, its CPU usage was a little higher than normal. The LTR-52327S did pretty well when it came time to rip audio CD's. While not the fastest 52x writer we've looked at, it performed better than most, reaching 48x in our tests.

The LTR-52327S's writing and rewriting performance was even more impressive. While the drive's average writing speed isn't as fast as one might expect, it turned in some of the fastest writing times we've seen. Better yet, Lite-On's new writer was able to do this with a wide variety of media, while keeping the writing errors to a minimum. The LTR-52327S also did very well in our rewriting tests. With its 32x rewriting speeds, the drive blew past the competition. Oddly enough, the drive was slower when packet writing but even then, its performance was still quite good. With all things considered, I gave the LTR-52327S a solid 9 out of 10 for performance.