Editing Optical disc drive (section)

== Recording performance ==
[[File:Photo20250511loz 01.jpg|thumb|Cleaner CDs, with brushes, were available aftermarket]]
During the times of CD writer drives, they are often marked with three different speed ratings. In these cases, the first speed is for write-once (R) operations, the second speed for re-write (RW) operations, and the last speed for read-only (ROM) operations. For example, a 40×/16×/48× CD writer drive is capable of writing to CD-R media at speed of 40× (6,000&nbsp;kbit/s), writing to CD-RW media at speed of 16× (2,400&nbsp;kbit/s), and reading from a CD-ROM media at speed of 48× (7,200&nbsp;kbit/s).

During the times of [[combo drive|combo (CD-RW/DVD-ROM) drives]], an additional speed rating (e.g. the 16× in 52×/32×/52×/16×) is designated for DVD-ROM media reading operations.

For DVD writer drives, Blu-ray Disc combo drives, and Blu-ray Disc writer drives, the writing and reading speed of their respective optical media are specified in its retail box, user's manual, or bundled brochures or pamphlets.

In the late 1990s, [[buffer underrun|''buffer underruns'']] became a very common problem as high-speed CD recorders began to appear in home and office computers, which—for a variety of reasons—often could not muster the I/O performance to keep the data stream to the recorder steadily fed. The recorder, should it run short, would be forced to halt the recording process, leaving a truncated track that usually renders the disc useless.

In response, manufacturers of CD recorders began shipping drives with "buffer underrun protection" (under various trade names, such as [[Sanyo]]'s [[burn proof|"BURN-Proof"]], [[Ricoh]]'s "JustLink" and [[Yamaha Corporation|Yamaha]]'s "Lossless Link"). These can suspend and resume the recording process in such a way that the gap the stoppage produces can be dealt with by the [[Reed–Solomon error correction|error-correcting]] logic built into CD players and CD-ROM drives. The first of these drives{{which|date=July 2020}} were rated at 12× and 16×.

The first optical drive to support recording DVDs at 16× speed was the [[Pioneer Electronics|Pioneer]] DVR-108, released in the second half of 2004. At that time however, no [[DVD-R|recordable DVD media]] supported that high recording speed yet.<ref name=PC-WELT-DVR-108>[https://www.pcwelt.de/news/Pioneer-DVR-108-16x-DVD-Brenner-im-PC-WELT-Test-Update-91301.html ''"Pioneer DVR-108: 16x-DVD-Brenner im PC-WELT-Test"''] (PCwelt.de, 2004-08-12) (German)]</ref><ref name=Chip-DVR-108>[https://www.chip.de/artikel/16fach-DVD-Brenner-Pioneer-DVR-108_140093649.html ''"16fach-DVD-Brenner Pioneer DVR-108 Der schnellste DVD-Brenner"''] − CHIP.DE (2004-10-16) (German)</ref><ref name=Pioneer-DVR-108>[https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Computer/Computer+Drives/DVR-108 Pioneer DVR-108 – Product information and specifications]</ref>

While drives are burning DVD+R, DVD+RW and all Blu-ray formats, they do not require any such error correcting recovery as the recorder is able to place the new data exactly on the end of the suspended write effectively producing a continuous track (this is what the DVD+ technology achieved). Although later interfaces were able to stream data at the required speed, many drives now write in a '[[zoned constant linear velocity]]' (''"Z-CLV"''). This means that the drive has to temporarily suspend the write operation while it changes speed and then recommence it once the new speed is attained. This is handled in the same manner as a buffer underrun.

The internal buffer of optical disc writer drives is: 8&nbsp;MiB or 4&nbsp;MiB when recording BD-R, BD-R DL, BD-RE, or BD-RE DL media; 2&nbsp;MiB when recording DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-R DL, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD+RW DL, DVD-RAM, CD-R, or CD-RW media.