Testing

     The PX-810UF shipped with a USB 2.0 cable so that is what will be used for testing.  It wasn't easy to find 10x Dual Layer DVD's.  I got lucky though and found some Verbatim 8x discs that have 10X capability with 10x DL drives.

     You can see the capability of the Plextor drive.  The only option that was left off was Lightscribe.  Alright, let's get on with the benchmarks and burns.

     Burning a CD-R is pretty fast at 48x.  As you can see, the end speed was a little faster at 49x and the total time was 2 minutes and 34 seconds.

     The DVD was off the chart so to speak.  Nero's speed tool only graphs up to 16x on DVD's.  Looks like it's time for Nero to come out with an update.  The end speed was just over 18x and it was only 4 minutes and 45 seconds to finish.

     The dual layer graph looks a little erratic.  Plextor slowly steps up the speed then steps it back down at the end to ensure a high quality burn.  Still 8GB in only 12 minutes is pretty fast.  In all three tests you can see a periodic drop in speed as the drive "shifts gears".   Let's move on to some real world tests.  For the following tests I used Nero to burn a data disc.  I used large and small files to come up with 8.1GB of data and burned it to a DVD+R DL using the fastest setting.  I then used Nero to burn a data DVD.  Small and large files were used to come up with just over 4.5GB of data and burned it to a DVD-R

Dual Layer DVD
8.1 GB file	14Min 6Sec
DVD-R
4.5 GB File	5Min 49Sec

 

Conclusion

     The Plextor PX-810UF is a very flexible drive, firewire, USB, Windows or Mac.  You can pretty much hook the plextor up to any computer out there.  The drive is very fast and performed faster than any other drive we've tested here at the Club.  I've been using the drive pretty hard now for about a week and I've yet to make a coaster.  The price at Plextor is $139.  I've seen the drive for as low as $119 on Newegg.  But still at $119, the drive is still the most expensive external DVD burner on Newegg.  In Plextor's defense, the PX-810UF has the fastest speed ratings of any of the other drives on Newegg.  If you want the latest and greatest, you have to pay for it.

Innovation:	8.5 out of 10
Performance:	9.5 out of 10
Quality:	9.0 out of 10
Stability:	N/A
Overclocking:	N/A
Software/Drivers Pack:	7 out of 10
Value:	6 out of 10
Overall Rating 8.0
Project Skill Level (10 being most difficult)	5 out of 10