How can I increase DVD/Blu ray write speed?

[gsingh13]

I have been doing a lot of research but I'm not getting anywhere so I really need someone's help. Basically I have windows xp, 1gb ram and I looking at upgrading my computer and buying a new blu ray writer. However I want to be sure that I choose the correct hardware to ensure to ensure the fastest write speed.

Firstly I would just like to clarify a few things. If I am simply copying or writing from 1 disc to another directly what determines the speed of the writing process? If I have a dvd writer that supports 12x speed and I use a dvd-r disc which is only 8x write speed does the computers hard drive, ram or whatever matter when it comes to disc writing speed? If I burned the same discs using the same dvd writer on a �200 spec computer and on a �1000 spec computer would the more expensive spec computer write the 8x disc faster or will the computer not make any difference and the only way to increase the write speed is to get a 12x disc?

Since I'm buying a blu ray writer I've noticed some now have usb3 which is faster than usb2 but I don't understand how this would work when writing dvd or blu ray discs. If I was to write 5gb's worth of data via usb3 on a 2x disc will this be faster than writing 5gb's worth of data via usb2?

Since I'm buying a laptop I would probably get an external blu ray writer and connect it via usb2, would this be slower than if I used an internal writer and connected it directly to the laptop? If using external drivers via usb2 are slower than an internal sata connection is there anyway I could connect an internal writer externally to a laptop but in a way that will be faster than a usb2 connection?

Any help guys would be much appreciated.

[redwudz]

USB will normally be a lot slower than an internal SATA drive. But I think you're worrying too much about write speed. BD media writes much faster than most DVD media. It may look slower, but there is much more data being transferred.

I use 4X Verbatim BD media, but my write speed ends up to close to 8X during the majority of the burn.

What you want to be looking at is how fast the burning program buffer refills and how fast the BD burner buffer refills. My burning program (ImgBurn) buffers refill very quickly. The burners buffers are much smaller and refill a bit slower. As long as my burner buffers stay about 50% or more, that's about as good as it gets. Even if they go below 50%, the burning program will just slow down the burn.

Personally, I wouldn't use anything except ImgBurn to burn BD or DVD media. JMO.

Anyway, I hope that helps with some of your questions.



If you are doing a direct disc transfer to a new disc, not a good idea. Much better to rip a disc to your hard drive and burn from there. Directly burning from disc to disc can cause problems as you are depending on two optical drives to stay synced. Doesn't always happen.