Sony DRU-510A DVD-RW Burner Review

Cheap but Reliable!
Overall
4

Summary

This DVD Burner is a must have for your daily backup purposes.

Pros

Reliable, Worth every penny!

Cons

None at all!

I initially bought this Sony DRU-510A DVD burner to backup my private DVD collections. But after I bought it I found out that I could not burn copyrighted DVD’s. Well, I didn’t return it then, just kept if for software, documents, and other backups. Now there’s a software called DVD X Copy Platinum (no available anymore) and this baby burns everything, even copyrighted DVD’s. A couple of months back, the court banned this software so, 321 Studios will no longer make/update this software. After lots and lots of searches, I found DVD Shrink which is totally free and copies anything. Now I use it to make my backups.

INSTALLATION

The installation caused no problems at all. The quick install guide tells you exactly what to do, like every other optical drive. The drive needs no special drivers. You can do just about anything with the Nero Burning Rom software which comes with the drive.

BURNING

As usual, I recorded several types of brand-name and non-brand discs. No problems occurred; the drive successfully detects and records most disk (Nero software). Also, recording of the discs of both formats was flawless at all speeds available.

READ SPEED

The read speed of all media types is controlled in the auto mode which is not always convenient. Sony allows a user to adjust the read speed with a special utility available on their support website. Overall, the read speed is as fast as other drives.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

There is no much noise if the drive works with properly balanced disks, or not at the maximum speed. The system automatically sets the maximum speed checks for badly readable discs and video disks. The drive’s speed can be adjusted with a special utility which can be found at Sony’s support website.

VIBRATION IN CASE OF UNBALANCED CDS

The drive vibrated when it worked with such disc but it managed to finish its reading without errors and at high speed.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Sony offers a pretty good drive that delivers high speed and good recording quality on almost all modern optical media types without much noise. However, the drive has quite a lot of errors when burning ULTRA SPEED CD-RW’s, but I hope this problem will be solved with a new firmware version.


Specifications

BrandSony
Websitewww.sony.com
Read SpeedsDVD : 12x
CD : 32x
Write SpeedsCD-R : 24x
DVD-R : 4x
DVD+R : 4x
Re-Write SpeedsCD-RW : 16x
DVD+RW : 4x
DVD-RW : 2x
EnclosureInternal
InterfaceE-IDE
ATAPI
CD FormatsCD-DA
CD-ROM
CD-ROM (XA)
CD-Extra
Video CD
Photo CD
CD-Text
Multi-session
DVD FormatsDVD-ROM
DVD-Video
DVD-R/RW
DVD R/RW
Access TimesDVD : 200 mS
CD : 160 ms
MountingHorizontal
Vertical
Buffer Size8MB
Compatible OS'sMicrosoft Windows 98/ME/XP
Dimensions5.75 (W) x 1.65 (H) x 7.72 (D) inches
Weight2.65 lbs
Warranty1 year