larrymcg Posted June 11, 2006 Report Share Posted June 11, 2006 I'm using Retrospect 6.5.382 (latest updates) and have just replaced my CD-RW drive (top speed 4X) with a Memorex 16X Dual-Layer Dual-Format DVD writer. I am using TDK CD-Rs (up to 52X media) for backup testing. This writer can write CD-Rs at 48X. Retrospect did not know about the drive so I did the custom config operation which seemed to work fine. I set the drive Recording properties to 32X since I'd heard a lot about trying to write reliably at top speeds. Several test backups with verification ON worked fine except that they were slow. The writing part seems to run at about 7X and the compare at 4X (I expect the compare to be slower). I did another test today and got a write error immediately so I set the Recording properties to 16X and tried again. This time the backup succeeded but at a rate of 7X. So my new drive that is theoretically 16 times faster than the old drive is running less than twice as fast (under Retrospect). On the other hand the new drive writes very fast when burning music CD-Rs so I know it can do it. Is it normal that Retrospect, especially when a custom config of the drive is needed, does not utilize the full speed of the drive? --Larry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekr0phage Posted June 12, 2006 Report Share Posted June 12, 2006 Hi Larry, Unfortunately custom configured drivers do not always allow for top-speed burner performance. When a customer driver file is created Retrospect will perform read and write tests at lower and lower speeds until it can perform the tests succesfully. There is little that can be done to increase the speed of the backups except to use a supported drive or use better quality media. However, you are already using one of the recommended brands of media. The other brand is Verbatim. It is possible that this drive is supported in an update released after 6.5, you can check here: http://emcinsignia.com/supportupdates/technical/retrospect/device/ If it is supported, you can get the trial of the newest version of Retrospect to perform some test backups, and if you feel the difference in speed is worth it you could upgrade. The trial can be obtained here: http://emcinsignia.com/try/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larrymcg Posted June 12, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2006 Thanks for that info. It seems the only Memorex drives listed are CD-RW drives. I am bothered by one failure of a test backup. The error reported was Trouble writing: "1-test bkup of downloads" (104857600), error -100 (device rejected command) I got this error before any files were written. So I tried again with another blank disc (same TDK discs) and it worked fine. That error looks nasty to me. More like an inability to talk to the drive than a write failure. Maybe this drive isn't working as well as it should. Another thought -- the drive is a slave on the IDE channel. The master is an old DVD-ROM drive that operates in PIO mode whereas the Memorex DVD writer is in Ultra DMA Mode 2. Maybe I'll redo the setup and make the Memorex the master. If someone can elucidate on that -100 error it would be helpful. In the meantime I'll do more research and testing. --Larry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekr0phage Posted June 12, 2006 Report Share Posted June 12, 2006 Hi Larry, Yeah, it sounds like the custom configuration didn't work correctly. Here's some info on error -100: http://kb.dantz.com/article.asp?article=5914&p=2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larrymcg Posted June 12, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2006 Foster, Curiously the -100 error has happened only once in about 5 or 6 test backup sessions all done with the new Memorex drive and the TDK CD-Rs. I would guess that if the custom config failed then I'd be getting the same errors all the time. The fact that I've had the -100 error once out of 5 or 6 test backups makes me think something is on the edge. I wouldn't like to get that error 10 CDs into a 12 CD backup! Actually, I have done the custom config twice. After my initial testing with slow results I did the config again to see if it would make anything better but it didn't. Presumably it won't hurt to try the custom config again so I will! --Larry PS: I searched the Dantz info and didn't come up with the reference you gave me on the error. Maybe I need to practice my searching some more! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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