Writers are becoming less and less expensive nowadays and so it's not uncommon anymore to have more than one writer
installed on your computer. Computers are also becoming faster and faster and, in theory, it should be possible to use
several writers at the same time. In this little article we're going to test several software packages and see how
multiple writers can be used at the same time. This should give you a general idea of what's possible and what factors
are important when using multiple writers.
For this article we're going to use three writers and see if they can write the same amount of data at the same time.
When using multiple writers at once your computer, and especially your hard disk, has to deliver a huge amount of data at
a constant rate. For our tests we're going to use the following configuration:
Hardware:
- Motherboard: ASUS K7V
- Processor: AMD Athlon 700Mhz
- RAM: 256MB (PC133)
- GFX: ASUS V8200 (GeForce 3 Ti200)
- Hard Disks: DiamondMax 40GB & 30GB (7200rpm)
- IDE Controller: PCI UDMA100 Controller
- USB Controller: NEC USB 2.0 Controller
As you can see from these specs our test computer isn't the fastest model around anymore. One of the crucial components
when using multiple writers is the hard disk. When you for instance use three writers at 24X this would mean a data rate of
3 x 3.600kb/s = 10.800kb/s. When running three drives at the fastest speed available today this would mean a top data
rate of 3 x 7.200kb/s (48X) = 21.600kb/s, more than 20MB/s!
Our test computer has two hard disks, a Maxtor 40GB (UDMA133, 7200rpm) and a Maxtor 30GB (UDMA100, 7200rpm). The 40GB
Maxtor is the main hard disk where the operating system is installed on. The 30GB Maxtor disk is going to be used for our
tests. One theoretical problem we're facing is that although the hard disks can operate in UDMA100/133, our motherboard can
only handle UDMA66 and thus both disks are running in this more (UDMA mode 4). We say 'theoretical' since 100MB/s or even
133MB/s is never reached on normal computer systems. Even the newest hard disks can't read more than about 50MB/s max. so
UDMA66 will do fine. Let's see if we can use three writers at the same time with this configuration. For this article we're
going to use the following drives, displayed in red:
System set-up:
As you can see we have hooked up two Plextor drives and a Yamaha drive using different interfaces. The Yamaha CRW-F1
drive is hooked up to the PCI UDMA100 controller. The first Plextor PX-W4824A drive is hooked up to the onboard secondary
IDE-channel and the second Plextor PX-W4824TU (displayed as PX-W4824A) is attached to the PCI NEC USB 2.0 controller.
The drives hooked up to the IDE-controllers are running in UDMA mode 2 (UDMA33).
As you can also see from the screenshot we even have room to use more writers since we also have a Lite-On LTR-48125W
attached and, if needed, a Plextor PX-W4012TU is also available. Like said we're going to use three writers for our tests
and we chose to use three different interfaces since running two drives that are on the same IDE-channel is simply not
going to work:
When you're running two drives on the same IDE-channel they will receive commands from the software. Unfortunately
the IDE-channel only permits to run one command at the time and the second drive at the same channel is locked and cannot
receive the information until the first command has been finished. So if you have two writers attached to the same
IDE-channel both drives are likely to obstruct each other. This will result in a buffer underrun or in the worst case the
second write process won't even start.
Software:
The Windows XP Professional operating system is installed on our test machine. We'll be testing the following software
packages:
- Ahead Nero Burning Rom v5.5.9.9
- Elaborate Bytes CloneCD v4.0.1.10
- Padus DiscJuggler v4.01.1002-PRO
- Alcohol 120% v1.3.1.1003 XP
Let's start with our first tests using Ahead's Nero Burning Rom...
The first software package we're going to take a look at is Nero Burning
Rom. Most people will know this software package but there are not many people that know you can use multiple recorders
with Nero. When you use the full version of Nero you can write to two recorders at once but if you want to use more recorders
you will have to buy special plug-ins to
enable writing to seven or even 32 writers at once.
As always you can start Nero and close the wizard if it pops up so you can access the advanced settings. We're going to
burn a normal data disc so the CD-ROM (ISO) format is what we need. When you click on the last tab you can see we now have
an option to enable 'Use Multiple Recorders':
After setting up the options you can start to create your compilation by dragging and dropping the files you want to
write from the right side of the screen to the left side:
When you're finished creating your compilation you can start the write process. For our tests we're going to burn a data
compilation of 650MB using two Plextor PX-W4824A/TU drives (one internal, one USB 2.0) and a Yamaha CRW-F1 drive hooked up
to a PCI UDMA100 controller. When starting the write process you will get a screen where you can choose the recorders you
want to use to burn the compilation:
By holding down the 'CTRL' button on your keyboard you can select multiple writers. As you can see from the screenshot
the maximum speed has been detected as 44X meaning that the maximum write speed will be limited to the lowest maximum speed
of the selected drive(s). The Yamaha is for instance a 44X writer while the Plextor drives have a maximum speed of 48X
which, in this case, means that the maximum write speed will be limited to 44X. For our first test we're going to test
writing at 24X:
As you can see from the screenshot above the burn process is running smoothly. All three drives have a full buffer and
our test computer has no problems supplying the data. The result is a successful burn done at 24X:
The three discs were written in 3 minutes and 46 seconds which is the write time you would expect when
writing 650MB at 24X. There were no buffer underruns during the write process but Nero did report that it was avoided once.
The buffer underrun was probably caused when starting the write process and the buffers were filled. If you want to make
sure your discs will be written without problems then you must use recorders that have a buffer underrun technique. Luckily
all new writers nowadays have such a technique on board.
Because writing at 24X was no problem at all with our test system we did another test. This time selected 40X writing
(6.000kb/s). We used Taiyo Yuden 650MB discs and repeated the write process.
As you can see from the screenshot the Yamaha CRW-F1 could only write at 16X to the Taiyo Yuden media (see the
red text). This caused the burn process to slow down to 16X for all three writers. Since 24X
writing was no problem, 16X was also no problem and the burn process was of course completed successfully in 5
minutes and 14 seconds.
Because we couldn't find media that the Yamaha could write to at 40X we replaced this drive with a Plextor PX-W4012A
drive and again repeated the write process. We tried writing a compilation of 700MB at 32X with the three Plextor drives:
As you can see the write process is again going very smoothly but we did notice a lot of buffer underruns. This was
caused because of the Plextor PX-W4012A and the Plextor PX-W4824A drive using different write strategies.
The Plextor 40X uses Z-CLV while the Plextor
48X uses P-CAV. So the Plextor PX-W4824A drives
reached the 32X write speed faster than the Plextor PX-W4012A so these drives were running ahead! You can see this from the
percentage rating after the buffer level. Both the Plextor PX-W4824A drives have a high rating of 94 and 96% meaning that
they're 94% and 96% ahead in writing the current block of data.
The write process was completed successfully in 3 minutes and 33 seconds. A few seconds slower than a normal
700MB write done at 32X but both Plextor PX-W4824A drives actually finished the write process a few seconds sooner showing
us the real difference between writing in Z-CLV and P-CAV. Overall a very good result!
The next software we're going to take a look at is the popular CloneCD...
Another program you can use to write to multiple writers is CloneCD.
CloneCD does not have an option to write to several writers at once but you can simply start the program several times
and start the write process for each writer separately. A disadvantage is that this doesn't work that easy but an
advantage is that you can use CloneCD to back-up copy-protected discs. Now you can create a back-up of a game for your
brother, your sister and for yourself so you can all play from a back-up without risking damage to the original disc.
For the CloneCD test we made an image file of a game called 'Neverwinter Nights' which we read with the Yamaha CRW-F1
drive. The game is protected with SecuRom NEW so we read the disc with the SecuRom Profile. We then started CloneCD three
times and inserted the discs in the recorders. We then simply started the write process three times and CloneCD started
to write the discs:
As you can see from the screenshot the discs are being written at about 24X but it's not going as smoothly as we saw
with Nero Burning Rom. The buffers are draining and are refilled again so the drive's buffer underrun technique has to
kick in a couple of times. All three discs were written in about 3 minutes and 16 seconds. We of course tested
the created back-ups and the game could be played from each back-up just fine.
Since writing at 24X was already draining the buffers we didn't test writing at a higher speed. CloneCD wasn't made to
write to several writers at once but as you can see from our results it does work. An advantage when using CloneCD is that
when one writer cannot write the inserted media at the selected speed and thus reduces its write speed, the other recorders
will still write at their maximum speed.
The next software package we're going to take a look at is DiscJuggler...
Padus DiscJuggler is another program that has support for multiple writers and for our article we're going to use
DiscJuggler 4.0 Professional with support for an unlimited number of recorders. DiscJuggler has some requirements for
writing one task to multiple drives. You can read
here what they are. Hardware tips can be found
here.
When you want to use multiple drives with DiscJuggler it's highly recommended to use drives via a so-called asynchronous
(constant bandwidth) interface, which are basically SCSI and Firewire.
When starting a new compilation in DiscJuggler you get a screen where you can choose the desired action:
We of course selected to make a new CD and after pressing ok we could set-up DiscJuggler and create our compilation.
When DiscJuggler is started you can see two tabs. One is the 'Explorer' tab where you can select the files you want to
write and the second 'CD Recording' tab is where you can select the recorders and set-up what kind of CD you want to
create. We first pressed the second tab and selected the recorders.
After selecting the three drives and inserting three blank discs we could use the explorer to add files to our
compilation and could access the Advanced screen in the screenshot above to select what kind of compilation we want to
create. We chose 'Mode 1 CD-ROM' and selected the option to finalize the discs.
Our test system is running two drives via the IDE-interface although one drive is attached to the onboard channel and
another is attached to a PCI-card. As said before Padus does not recommend using multiple drives at the same time if they
are attached to IDE. For our tests we did try to use our normal test set-up to see what would happen. Unfortunately
DiscJuggler could not write to all three discs with our current set-up. The process would start fine but would be
interrupted at about 3% when the actual write process started.
We of course also tried using a different set-up using three different writers. We used the following drives for our
next test:
This time the write process did work although the write speed was lowered to 16X (note that we used 40X certified Maxell
media in each drive). The external Plextor PX-W4824TU recorder had some buffer underruns but the process went fine for the
other two drives:
To continue our tests we then tried to write to another combination of three writers but this time two drives are attached
to the PCI USB 2.0 card and only one drive is being used via the IDE-interface:
Because we're using two drives via the USB 2.0 interface and our test system isn't that fast the write test failed at
24X. Well they did work but there were a lot of buffer underruns. When we lowered the write speed to 16X we had a much
better result since all three discs were written without problems:
As you can see from the screenshot the process was completed in 5 minutes and 21 seconds, about the same
time we needed with Nero Burning Rom writing at 16X. So all in all a pretty good result but Nero Burning Rom was more
friendly when it came to the used interfaces. As long as you don't use two recorders attached to the same IDE-channel Nero
will accept the write process.
When using multiple recorders with DiscJuggler it's highly recommended to use the SCSI or FireWire interface. These two
interfaces are the 'true' interfaces for multiple device recording. They are asynchronous, meaning they can have constant
bandwidth sent to the devices at the same time. Synchronous devices like IDE and USB 2.0 can be interrupted by other devices
on the same interface channel, which will kill a disc writing process like we also experienced with our first test.
The final software package we're going to take a look at is Alcohol 120%...
The last software package we're going to take a look at is called 'Alcohol 120%'. This new burn software is probably the least known software package we're going to test but it has some very interesting features and a very easy to use interface as you can see from the screenshots below. Alcohol 120% can emulate many copy-protections and can also be used to back-up your (copy-protected) audio and data discs.
For our tests we're going to create a back-up of a game called 'Neverwinter Nights' which we also used for our CloneCD tests. The game is protected with the SecuRom NEW protection so we used Alcohol's wizard function to create an image using the SecuRom settings. Below you can see some screenshots of the Alcohol 120% software. We're using the XP version:
Alcohol 120% - Main Window
Alcohol 120% - Create Image
Alcohol 120% - Image Created Successfully
After creating the image file (which took 2 minutes and 55 seconds) we started the 'Image Burning Wizard' and as you can see from the screenshot below we have an option to use multiple writers:
After pressing the Start button we can choose the recorders we want to use and after selected our desired devices we can start the recording process.
The write process went fine but unfortunately the Yamaha failed during the write process and Alcohol 120% reported the following error:
02:17:38 (G: ) YAMAHA CRW-F1E (1:0) : [Write ERROR] LBA : 00283264, Length : 16 S:KEY - 03/0C/0A - "Write Error - Padding Blocks Added" 02:17:38 (G: ) YAMAHA CRW-F1E (1:0) : Recording failed! 02:17:38 Error message : [03/0C/0A] - Write Error - Padding Blocks Added 02:17:38 (G: ) YAMAHA CRW-F1E (1:0) : Recording failed!
We then tried writing the same image file again but this time at a lower speed of 10X to see if the error would occur again. From the screenshot below you can see that this time the write process has been completed successfully:
We then of course tried to play the created back-ups and all three discs would play just fine. So in conclusion we can say that Alcohol 120% not only offers support for multiple writers but it can also handle copy-protected discs. Let's go to our final words and conclusions on the next page!
Update 08-10-2002: The problem with the Yamaha CRW-F1 drive has been fixed according to this thread on the Alcohol Support Forums.
As already mentioned in the introduction of this article many people nowadays have more than one writer. Although many
people won't need to use several writers at once it can be very handy. You, for instance, have to do a presentation and
you want to hand out copies of this presentation to attendants. If you have to write let's say 20 discs with one writer
it might take a while...
As you can see from our achieved results you really don't need a high-end system to use several writers at once. A simple
700MHz system was quick enough to use three writers at 24X without any problems. Of course the processor (CPU) of the system
is not the only important factor when writing to multiple writers. Your system has to have a quick hard disk and has to be
stable, meaning for instance no DMA-issues, no ASPI problems, etc.
A hard disk running in UDMA mode 4 (UDMA66) was quick enough for us to write three discs at 24X or even 32X when using
the Nero Burning Rom software. When using software that's not designed for using multiple drives the hard disk of your
computer becomes an important factor since this would mean that the hard disk has to supply the same data several times.
Writing at 24X would mean a data rate of (10.800kb/s) in this case. With our test computer CloneCD (the only program
that has no 'real' support for multiple drives) was able to control three drives at 16X without problems.
The most important factors when using multiple writers:
- Make sure your hard disk is fast enough
- Make sure your drives are running on separate channels/interfaces
- Use writers that have a buffer underrun technique
- Use stable software and make sure your system is stable
- If possible use identical drives for best performance
In conclusion we can say that Ahead's Nero Burning Rom was by far the most stable software package. The program is very
easy to set-up and had no problems using multiple recorders at once at 24X. If we would have used three identical drives we
could write three discs at 32X. Nero also wasn't very picky with the used interfaces. As long as each drive is running from
a separate channel Nero will use the drive without complaining. A disadvantage of Nero is that you need special plug-ins
to use multiple writers which are quite expensive ($249 for 7 recorders, $499 for 32 recorders).
www.nero.com
Elaborate Bytes' CloneCD wasn't build to be used with more than one writer but as you can see from our results it is
possible and it works quite well. Although we couldn't write at high speeds without draining the buffers of the recorders,
CloneCD was able to control three different drives with ease when using a lower speed. An advantage when using CloneCD is
that when one writer cannot write the inserted media at the selected speed and thus reduces its write speed, the other
recorders will still write at their maximum speed. Other programs will reduce the write speed for each drive when one drive
reduces its write speed. Price: 39 EURO. www.elby.ch
Padus' DiscJuggler also performed quite well in our tests but it was a little pickier when it came to the used recorder
interfaces. When using multiple recorders with DiscJuggler it's highly recommended to use the SCSI or FireWire interface.
We tried several IDE set-ups and had a mixed result. One process went fine at 16X writing while another process was
interrupted. When running two drives via the USB 2.0 interface the write speeds were also limited to about 16X writing. When
we used a faster write speed the drives' buffers would drain. Price: $59 (two drive license) up to $749 (unlimited drive
license). www.padus.com
The final software package we tested was Alcohol 120%. Although this software is probably the least known package of the
four we tested it has some great potential. We had some problems using multiple drives at once but keep in mind that
Alcohol 120% is still in its beta stage. The program has a very easy to use interface and it simply looks great just like
CloneCD. And also just like CloneCD, Alcohol 120% can back-up copy-protected games and besides that it's also an
emulator and it supports virtual devices so you can play a CD or DVD without needing the physical disc. Price: $49
www.alcohol-software.com
