Introduction

The name TDK will probably need no introduction here. One of the first vendor to launch a 48x24x48 CD-RW drive locally, TDK drives have also being one of the top performers around. So with drives based on the 52x-write strategy becoming a trend in the CD-RW market, especially those from Taiwanese vendors, we're all probably just anticipating one such drive from TDK. While TDK have indeed launched a 52x24x52x drive in the markets outside of Asia, they don't intend to do the same here. But TDK do have a surprise for us here - in the form of another 48x24x48x internal drive.

Needless to say, TDK have dubbed their new CD-RW baby the 2nd Edition of its 48x24x48x predecessor. What a TDK executive told us was pretty interesting - that the 2nd Edition drive have been very much optimized, with its firmware tweaked to write and re-write close to its 48x and 24x speed respectively. We were also told that the this 2nd Edition is going to give 52x drives a run for their money. Bold claims from TDK we must say, but results speak for themselves and we wasted no time in putting the drive through our standard benchmarks.