Product Reviews

Plextor has a healthy reputation at PC Pro for its internal CD-RW drives (see Labs, issue 85 and Labs and Reviews forum at www.pcpro.co.uk). However, the company is now looking to build on this by diversifying into external CD-RWs. Interestingly, rather than the more common IEEE-1394 interface, Plextor has employed the much-hyped USB 2 interface running at 480Mbits/sec. This interface was heavily promoted last summer yet was only first seen recently in the QPS Que! USB 2/1.1 (see Reviews, issue 83, p164), which had impressive performance.

Unlike the Que! USB 2/1.1, the S88TU features BURN-Proof technology. So, while the modest eight-speed write/eight-speed re-write/24-speed read specifications won't set the world on fire with their performance, your CDs have some protection if the data flow is interrupted for short periods. After setting up Adaptec's LP3100 USB 2 card in the test rig used for issue 85's CD-RW Labs group test, we plugged in the drive and installed the drivers with no problems.

To compare the PlexWriter S88TU against the IEEE-1394 and USB 1.1 external drives of last year as well as the Que! USB 2/1.1, we ran the same set of tests. It took 102 seconds to copy the Windows 98 CABs to disk, which is faster than any external drive in the Labs test. Also, a time of 252 seconds to read the 647Mb PQI file places it at the tail end of most of the

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internal 12-speed writers we saw two months ago. It's a similar story when browsing the 400 1Mb TGA files in Paint Shop Pro 7 with a time of just over three minutes - almost a minute slower than the Que! USB 2/1.1.

The PlexWriter S88TU wasn't impressive when it came to writing CDs either. It took 12 minutes to write the 647 PQI file, which shows the drive burning at around six-speed. This isn't a massive leap from the quad-speed writing capabilities of USB 1.1, and was also two minutes slower than the Que! USB 2/1.1. Similarly, it took four minutes to write the Windows 98 CABs - 44 seconds longer than the Que! USB 2/1.1 - and the TGAs took eight minutes. It's early days for USB 2 though, and maybe performance will improve as the standard matures.

Looking at the slimline profile of the drive, it's obvious the emphasis is on practicality rather than speed. The main unit is very thin, making it easily transportable in a laptop bag, but this is marred by the need for an external power supply. Considering the drive has been made for portability, the lack of a bus-powered design is something of an oversight. Plextor says this is due to power requirement issues, although hopefully this can be sorted out for future drive models. Otherwise, the drive is stylish and feels solid.

The PlexWriter S88TU is Plextor's first retail external CD-RW and overall it's very respectable. It doesn't set the world on fire, though, and rivals are sure to enter this market with faster speeds, but the millions of USB 1.1 ports in circulation add backward compatibility, and USB 2 ports on motherboards are on their way. However, as many external drive users have already championed IEEE-1394, there's something of a hill to climb. The manufacturer that creates a low-powered CD-RW mechanism which can be powered from a USB 2 bus will reap the rewards, and then speed really will become secondary, especially to the laptop users at whom this drive is principally aimed.