| Yamaha
6416 CD-RW - Part 1 |
By Kan
23/06/99
Hardware One
Introduction
Yamaha announced to the
world on 11th May 1999 on their latest CD-RW drive, the Yamaha
6416. The 6416 is an improved model based on the extremely
successful 4206 as well as the 4416 predecessors. The high
performance 6416 is an ideal storage device, providing faster backup and random-access rewrite. Its 6X write, 4X rewrite and 16X
transfer rates make it competitive with other
high-capacity removable storage devices.
The drive also
offers RapidLinked(TM) packet writing, allowing users to add files
to a CD one at a time, with the drag-and-drop ease of a floppy
disk. Because of its standard command set, the new drive works
seamlessly with all major CD-RW software. The drive uses
affordable, widely available CD-R media for recording at 6X and
the increasingly popular 4X certified CD-RW media for rewriting at
4X.
According to
Dataquest, six million external CD-RW drives were shipped last
year. Now it is a good time to get a CD-RW drive. With plummeting
prices of the drives as well as CD-R media, you can have access to
a cheap and popular media to store your files. CD-ROM are so
popular that there will be little compatibility issues.
Portability will be the greatest selling
point for this established standard. Our stance remain that the CD-RW media is very affordable for all storage and backup purposes.
Want to make your
own CD compilations of your favorite Beatles CD? Just burn a copy
for yourself and play it on your car CD player. Want to backup
your files daily? Just "drag and
drop" the files into your CD-RW. Need to do a
multimedia presentation over at your client's office, but can't
fit your presentation onto a ZIP disk? Don't worry. Just burn a
copy and as long as your client's PC is equipped with a CD-ROM
drive (who does not have one?), you are set to go. It's so
simple and dummy proof that everyone will be comfortable using a
CD-RW nowadays.
A typical CD-R
media can hold 650 MB of data or 74 minutes of audio. Currently,
CD-R media retail for less than US$1. CD-RW media which let users
erase and re-record data sell for under US$15 and they will dip
below US$10 by year end. It just make great sense to own a CD-RW!
Yamaha
CRW6416S
The model I tested was the SCSI version of the 6416. The
drive should be retailing in the market around end of June/July.
6X write is a sweet pleasure to me who is used to the 4X write of
my 4416S. A full 650 MB typically clock under 13 minutes compare
to 18 minutes for a 4X write.
Its superior design allows the drive to achieve a very
good read speed of 16X not found on many CD-RW drives today. If you are not picky, this
speed should be adequate for use as your default CDROM reader. In any case, the best thing
about the drive is its 6X write ability which would be one of the fastest
in the market.
Special
thanks to Convergent Systems
for the provision of the Yamaha CD-RW
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