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It was the interface that used to restrain the development of external optical devices. The interface bandwidth should correspond to the ever-increasing operational speeds of the drives. The popular and widespread USB 1.1 couldn’t cope with the tasks it confronted.
The situation dramatically changed early this year when more and more mainboards acquired USB 2.0 support and this feature was no longer exclusive. This factor untied the hands of optical drive makers. The theoretical bandwidth limit now equaled 60MB/s, which was enough for devices of this category. This was good news, because external models are sometimes handy or simply indispensable, even though they cost more. The Taiwanese ASUSTeK followed the trend by releasing its own version of an external optical drive.
So, today we are going to introduce to you the new ASUS CRW-5224A-U CD-RW drive.
ASUS CRW-5224A-U: Closer Look
Work modes | CAV reading |
Read speed | 52x max. (DAE 52x max.) |
Write speed | 52x, 48x, 40x, 32x, 24x, 16x, 8x, 4x |
Rewrite speed | 24x, 16x, 12x, 10x, 8x, 4x, 2x |
Average access time (typical) | 100ms |
Write modes | TAO |
Interface | USB 2.0 |
Buffer size | 2MB |
Supported disk formats | CD-DA |
Dimensions | 155.6x50x226mm |
Weight | 1.398kg |
Approximate pricing | $105 |
The model we review today is for retail stores. The box is quite informative, listing all characteristics of the device and depicting the drive itself.
