Newer optical drives seem to read CDs slowly.

[marzsyndrome]

To be more precise, I'm currently using a Pioneer BDR-207D in my rig for BD-R burning purposes mainly. What I have noticed, however, is that it reads CD-ROMs - mostly older games on factory-pressed discs - at an embarrassingly slow rate, to the point of needing 5-10 seconds to copy a ~30Mb file, for example.

I thought in this day and age CD reading speeds were supposed to whizz by in milliseconds? What the heck's going on? I checked the drive and it's definitely not in PIO Mode, and besides I've only noticed the problem with CDs so far. Is this a side-effect of optical drives getting newer, that they have to sacrifice benefits for older formats?

[ricktendo64]

[marzsyndrome]

I forgot to mention actually - it *is* capable of reading/copying at faster speeds, but only if it detects a lot of heavy workload in its objective. It's like it has to take a good ten seconds or so to wake up more and get properly speedy. Otherwise, most of the time it's like it "subdues" itself too often.

Are we sure this is how CD-ROM media and drives always worked over the past 15 years? Have I just been spoiled by the newer optical media and SD material since then?

[5eraph]

It should take a few seconds to spin up an idle optical drive. Another factor to consider is that optical drives perform far better with sequential reads than random-access reads. Seeking an audio disc is a perfect example of this difference; it often takes several seconds to change tracks.

[ELiTE]

To be more precise, I'm currently using a Pioneer BDR-207D in my rig for BD-R burning purposes mainly. What I have noticed, however, is that it reads CD-ROMs - mostly older games on factory-pressed discs - at an embarrassingly slow rate, to the point of needing 5-10 seconds to copy a ~30Mb file, for example.

It's a lazer issue. CDs read at the lower end of the light spectrum and then DVDs read higher and I can only assume Bluerays higher still.
As with game consoles etc, failure to read discs adequately indicates the lazer is not reading across the spectrum.
As said by ricktendo64, try to upgrade the firmware (easily done if available) and if that does not fix the problem then RMA the unit.

30MB should copy in less than the blink of an eye. Also, "waiting for it to initialize" should NOT happen and indicates a firmware/hardware issue.

Hint: BEST optical drives on the planet are made by SAMSUNG. Do yourself a favor at your next optical drive replacement date......

[marzsyndrome]

It's funny, I was thinking about your Samsung recommendation and look around the web just now, and it appears I can't even find any Samsung drive in existence that fits all of the following criteria:

* Internal
* SATA
* Fat (as in not slim, I don't use a laptop)
* Writes BD-R(W)

Do Samsung simply not do them? Will I have to be forced to go for one of their slim drives instead even though it won't snug it neatly into my recently bought tower PC? What's your 2nd recommended company besides them?

[bphlpt]

I personally have had good service recently with LG drives. The one I have in my current machine is this one - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827136241 I've had it over a year with no problems. It is rather hard to find now since it is a 2011 model. I think its replacement is this one - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827136250. It seems to meet your criteria.

Cheers and Regards

[crashfly]

* Writes BD-R(W)

I think this is your issue. It appears that Samsung does not create a Blue-Ray drive. Without that requirement though, you can find several drives they do make.