Nero CD Speed can be used to verify the speed of the CD RW drive. It's included in the retail package of the Lite-On drive. Bringing up Nero CD Speed shows this window. There's no CD in the CD RW drive at the moment so notice that the "Start" button in the upper right hand side is low-lighted. Notice the selection window near the center-top identifies my CD RW drive as a LTR-40125S.
Insert a writable CD in the CD RW drive, preferably one that matches the speed of the drive. Since I'm using a Lite-On drive that supports a "write once" speed of 40x, I inserted a 40x CD-R into the drive. The window changes to look like this. Notice how in the lower right under "Disc" it now states "Blank" and shows the length of the CD-R in minutes and seconds. And the "Start" button is no longer low-lighted. Press the "Start" button to do the write test.
Here are the results shown after the test completes.
As with the hard drive speed test, it's difficult to know how to interpret the result of the test with the just the raw data, and what is needed are the expected results to which it can be compared. We can go to the CDSpeed database to compare these results to a "typical" LTR-40125S. To get there, click on the "Help" menu and select "About", to bring up the window below. Then click on the link to the "Website". Umm, and you need to be online.
The CDSpeed2000 home page appears. Under "test results", click on "CD write".
Entry 19 is for the Liteon LTR-40125S. Click on the "Details" link at the right-most of the entry.
Which brings up these "typical" results. They are virtually identical to the results I got. Actually, my results were a little bit better since I had an average write speed of 31.30x.
Read tests can be done as well. Remove the writable CD from the drive and replace it with read-only CD that is already largely filled with data. In my case, I used an edutainment CD. After inserting the CD, notice that in the lower right under "Disc" it now states "Data" and shows the length of the edutainment CD in minutes and seconds. Under the "Run Test" menu, select "Transfer Rate Test".
And here are the results that were achieved. As before, you can go to the web-site and compare to typical results, but this time under "testresults" look under "Data CD". The results I achieved are right on target for a 40x drive.