Written By Dave Pitlyuk
Installation went fine as long as you can understand the jumper settings. I had some confusions at first with the hard drive and the cd-rom drive as master and slave, but once I figured that out, installation was a breeze. When I got into windows it recognized the drive, and all I had to do was put the disk that came with the drive and installed the drivers. From there on I had no problems and the drive worked totally fine.
Like I said installation was fine, it was just my fault with the jumper settings problem. I found the answer to my problem in a second in the manual that came with the cd-rom drive. Actually another problem I had was when I was took out the drive I accidentaly left the cd in it. So instead of putting the drive back and re-opening it, I chose the lazy way and ended up breaking the cover of the tray table. It still works fine though, just to let you know. One thing I noticed was the noise. When you put in a cd it makes a lot of noise reading the cd at first, but then after it is pretty quiet, which I enjoyed a lot since my old cd-rom drive was really loud. That got annoying when I was trying to play a game and I could hear the drive over the sounds of the game. So I can take the 10 seconds of reading noise in the beginning. As for speed, it seems fast and I have never had any kind of staggering using anything in the cd-rom. In the benchmarks even though it said the cd-rom drive acted a 22X CD-ROM the score it got of 2383 was 483 points higher then an 32X ATAPI reference drive. I was also pleased for the compatibility of different types of cd's it supported, especially CD-R and CD-RW. For around $75 I believe this is a pretty decent cd-rom drive, and is worth investing in, and Sony has a good reputation so that also tells you something else.
These specifications are from the Sony Corporation
| Part Number | CDU711/CH |
| Drive Type | CD-ROM Drive |
| Read Speed | 32X Maximum |
| Host Interface | Atapi (EIDI) |
| Sustained Data Transfer Rate | 600 to 1350 KB/s Mode (4 to 9X CAV) |
| 1200 to 2700 KB/s Mode 1 (8 to 18X CAV) | |
| 2100 to 4800 KB/s Mode 1 (14 to 32X CAV) | |
| 682 to 1534 KB/s Mode 2 (4 to 9X CAV) | |
| 1364 to 3069 KB/s Mode 2 (8 to 18X CAV) | |
| 2387 to 5456 KB/s Mode 2 (14 to 32X CAV) | |
| Data Transfer Rate | 33 MB/s ATA ULTRA DMA Mode 2 |
| 16.7 MB/s ATA Multiword DMA Mode 2 | |
| 16.7 MB/s ATA PIO Mode 4 | |
| Random Access Time | 80 ms (14X to 32X CAV, average, including latency) |
| MTBF* | 100,000 POH (25% Duty) |
| Buffer Memory | 256 KB |
| Mounting | Horizontal or vertical |
| Drive Dimensions | 5.75" W x 1.63" H x 7.99" D (146.0 x 41.4 x 203.0 mm) |
| Drive Weight | 1 lb 13 oz (0.82 kg) |
| Media And Modes Supported | CD-Digital Audio, CD Extra, CD TEXT, CD-ROM (Mode 1) |
| CD-ROM XA (Mode 2 Form 1 and Form 2) | |
| CD-I (Mode 2 Form 1 and Form 2) CD-I Ready | |
| CD-Bridge, Photo CD (Single and multisession), Video CD | |
| CD-Recordable (CD-R) and CD-ReWritable (CD-RW) | |
| Package Contents | CDU711 32X CD-ROM Drive, audio card, mounting screws; Sony DOS/Windows 3.1 device driver; quick start card |
| Minimum System Requirements | 486 DX66 MHz compatible (Pentium Recommended |
| DOS 6.22, Windows 3.1, 95, or NT | |
| 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive | |
| Open 5.25" drive | |
| 8 MB RAM (required to install device driver if running DOS or Windows 3.1) | |
| Bus Mastering ATAPI (EIDI) connection required for max 32X performance *MTBF is an average based on normal office conditions. Actual experience may vary |
System Tested On:
| Pentium II 400 Mhz |
| 128 MB RAM |
| 32X IDE CD-ROM |
| Creative PC-DVD Drive |
| 16 GIG Hard Drive |
| Windows 98 |
| AGP STB Velocity 4400 |
| Creative Voodoo 2 |
SiSoft Sandra 98 was used for benchmarking
Benchmarking tested using the Microsoft Encarta 98 CD-ROM
Comparisons:
| Sony CDU711 | 2383 |
| ATAPI 32X | 1980 |
| ATAPI 12X | 1100 |
| ATAPI 8X | 800 |
| ATAPI 4X | 400 |
CD-ROM Cache Information:
| Test Uses Cache: | Yes |
| Test Uses VideoCD/DVD: | No |
| Test File Size | 96MB |
| Cache Size: | 1238KB |
| Optimise Pattern | 4x speed |
Benchmark Breakdown:
| Drive Technology | 22x speed |
| Inner Track Speed | 12208 RPM |
| Buffered Read | 42 MB/s |
| Sequential Read | 3455 KB/s |
| Random Read | 774 KB/s |
| Average Access Time | 112 ms (full stroke estimated) |