Introduction

Writing speed in CD-RW drives have increased leaps and bounds and it was only last year this time when 24x-writing drives surfaced, and with that, we also came to know about the Z-CLV and P-CAV writing technologies that were used in such high-speed re-writable drives to attain 20x and above writing speed. While most vendors concentrated on making drives with faster CD-R writing speed since last year (24x, 32x, 40x and 48x), the re-writable aspect of a CD-RW drive seems to have been neglected by most of them and it was only recently where drives that supports 12x CD-RW media have surfaced.

The 48x24x48x marking on the CyClone's faceplate.

As we begin to embrace ourselves in the next wave of 48x CD-RW drives, we do know that 48x burners will support 12x CD-RW media and some vendors have even featured 16x CD-RW media support for their 48x drives. But TDK seems to have jumped the gun in this industry with the announcement of their 48x24x48x CD-RW drive. Let's take a look at the specifications of this drive.

A closer look at the drive's rear end.