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MSI XA52P Review

Introduction

Introduction

Finally we reached the point when optical drives cannot be much faster, regarding to the reading speed as well as the recording speed. Producers try to make their drives more attractive in different ways. Drives looks nicer and nicer, they are colorful etc. Many producers started to combine their optical drives with other devices like for example flash memory card readers. MSI offers something absolutely fresh: MSI XA52P - first in the market drive with a Serial-ATA interface. For quite a long time we have been able to buy hard disk drives, but just from now on, we have the possibility to get rid of those wide stripes of IDE interface from our PC machines. We had the possibility to test MSI XA52P S-ATA drive in our lab. Here we present our reviews.

       We would like to thank a lot MSI Poland, for making this drive available to our lab.

The drive that we received was in BOX version. Inside the box we found: Serial-ATA cable, three front panels, 'Active Panel', audio cable, screws, Nero 6 software (Nero Burning ROM 6, Nero Vision Express 2, Nero Recode 2, InCD 4), CyberLink PowerDVD XP 5.0 software and quick installation guide.

Technical specification (producer's data): :

• Interface: Serial-ATA
• Modes: Mode PlO 4 : 16,6MB/sec
        Mode Multiword DMA 2 : 16,6MB/sec
        Ultra DMA mode 2 : 33,3MB/sec
  
• Media pass over mechanism: tray
• Access time CD/DVD: 100/120 msec
• Buffer size: 2.0 MB
• CD max read speed: 52x (CAV)
• DVD max read speed: 16x (CAV)
• CD-R write speed:
        52x - 7.800 KB/s - CAV
        48x - 7.200 KB/s - P-CAV
        24x - 3.600 KB/s - P-CAV
        12x - 1.800 KB/s - CLV
        8x - 1.200 KB/s - CLV
        4x - 600 KB/s - CLV
  
• CD-RW write speed:
        24x - 3.600 KB/s - P-CAV
        16x - 2.400 KB/s - CLV
        12x - 1.800 KB/s - CLV
        10x - 1.500 KB/s - CLV
        4x - 600 KB/s - CLV
  
• Analog and digital audio output
• Writing modes (from Nero InfoTool) : Packet, TAO, DAO, SAO, RAW SAO, RAW SAO 16, RAW SAO 96, RAW DAO 16, RAW DAO 96,
• Reading modes: CD-DA, CD-I, CD-I Bridge (Photo-CD), CD-I Bridge (Video-CD), CD-MIDI, CD-R, CD-ROM, CD-ROM XA, CD-RW, CD-TEXT, DVD-R Ver. 1.0 (3.9 GB), DVD-R Ver. 2.0, DVD-ROM (DVD-10), DVD-ROM (DVD-18), DVD-ROM (DVD-5), DVD-ROM (DVD-9), DVD-RW Ver. 1.1, Multisession CD-Extra, Multisession CD-R, Multisession CD-RW, Multisession Photo-CD, Multisession Portfolio-CD, DVD+R, DVD+RW
• MTBF 100.000 h
• Net weight: 1 kg
• 145.8(W) x 41.4(H) x 170.8(D)mm (without front panel)

On the front panel: hole for emergency tray unlock, see-through 'open tray' button, drive condition LED

On the rear panel: Serial-ATA socket, power socket, (+5 V : max 2,0 A (rms), +12 V : max 2,0 A (rms)), analog output 0,7V ą 20% : 47Kohm), digital output

On the top there is the drive information label.

Nero Info Tool 2.07: