Blu-ray Drives Hit 8X Write Speeds

From Tom's Hardware: Buffalo Technology recently released to market the world’s fastest internal Blu-ray drive, capable of up to 8x read and write speeds. The drive has write speeds of up to 8x, achievable when using capable single-layer BD-R media and up to 2x write speeds capable when using BD-RE, LTH BD-R, or dual-layer BD-R media. The drive features an 8 MB buffer and is capable of reading and writing to DVD and CD media as well. An external version of the drive is also available, although write speeds are limited to 6.5x when using it over a USB 2.0 connection.

The internal SATA drive, BR-816FBS, and the USB 2.0/eSATA external drive, BR-816SU2, are based on Panasonic’s SW-5584. Early tests of the drive show it took 13 minutes and 44 seconds to fill up a 25 GB BD-R disc. The test was performed using 6x media, which is the fastest currently available BD-R media, yet the drive seemed to work fine while writing at 8x speeds with it anyways. The maximum theoretical speed for the reading and writing of Blu-ray discs is about 12x, so these new drives are getting pretty close to the maximum allowable speeds.

The new Buffalo internal Blu-ray drive is expected to cost between $350 to $400, it will include CyberLink’s Software Suite, and is currently beginning to fill retail outlets worldwide.

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