Slow DVD burning?

[Goober]

I just installed a Lite-On SOHW-1633S 16x (dual layer) DVD+/-RW drive. I did
a test burn of just under 1 GB of data (a backup of my most important
personal files) onto a 8x DVD+R disc. The data consisted mostly of many
small files. From start to finish (including the initial caching), the
process took over 6 minutes, which seems pretty slow to me.

Smart-Burn was enabled, but data verification was *not*. The drive's
firmware is the latest available from Lite-On (BS0K). I'm running Win XP
Home w/ SP2, a Pentium 4 2.4GHz, 512 MB RAM, and Nero Express 6.6.0.1 (the
latest update). The drive is plugged into the second UATA/100 EIDE channel
as the master (and only) device on that channel, using an 80-conductor
cable.

I've never owned a DVD burner before, only CD-RW drives including several
Lite-On CD burners. Is this normal behavior for burning DVDs? It may be and
that's OK, but I just need to know.

 

[Impmon]

I just installed a Lite-On SOHW-1633S 16x (dual layer) DVD+/-RW drive. I did
a test burn of just under 1 GB of data (a backup of my most important
personal files) onto a 8x DVD+R disc. The data consisted mostly of many
small files. From start to finish (including the initial caching), the
process took over 6 minutes, which seems pretty slow to me.

Sounds about right to me. That is faster than my burner who only does
4x/2.4x and mine often takes upward of 30 minutes for a full DVD.

DVD reads and writes considerably faster than a CD, it only seems so
long because you're looking at writing over 4GB of capacity to burn vs
only about 700MB for the CDs.

 

[Marcin Nowak]

I just installed a Lite-On SOHW-1633S 16x (dual layer) DVD+/-RW drive. I did
a test burn of just under 1 GB of data (a backup of my most important
personal files) onto a 8x DVD+R disc. The data consisted mostly of many
small files. From start to finish (including the initial caching), the
process took over 6 minutes, which seems pretty slow to me.

For me this LiteON drive takes 2 minutes to write lead
in/out. Writing 1GB on 8x media should be less then 2 minutes. So
yes, you are getting 2 extra minutes from somewhere.
I would make more tests and see where is this time spent.

Marcin