BD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16:

To test the BD writing performance of Sony's new drive I used BD-R, BD-R DL and BD-RE media from MBI, Sony, TDK and Verbatim. To get the writing times, CD Speed's "Create Data Disc" feature was used. I also ran the discs through CD Speed's transfer rate test to make sure that the BDX-S600U could read them back.


Sony 6x 25GB BD-R

 


Sony 6x 50GB BD-R DL

The BDX-S600U is the first portable drive from Sony that can write to BD-R and BD-R DL media at 6x. In both cases, the drive uses CAV to reach this speed.

  BD-R BD-RE BD-R DL
Sony BDX-S600U 22:10 45:27 44:10

With a maximum BD-R writing speed of 6x, the BDX-S600U wasn't nearly as fast as some of the desktop Blu-ray Disc writers we've looked at recently. Nevertheless, the drive performed very well, taking a little more than 22 minutes to burn an entire 25GB disc. Sony's new drive didn't disappoint when writing to BD-R DL media either. Thanks to its 6x writing speed, the BDX-S600U took 44 minutes to burn 50GB worth of data.

  Manufacturer ID Max
Write Speed
Write Time  
Moser Baer 25GB 6x BD-R MBI R06 6x 22:10 Transfer Rate
Sony 25GB 6x BD-R SONY NN3 6x 22:10 Transfer Rate
Sony 50GB 6x BD-R DL MEI RB1 6x 44:10 Transfer Rate
TDK 50GB 2x BD-RE DL TDKBLDWfa 2x 90:48 Transfer Rate
Verbatim 25GB 2x BD-R LTH VERBATIMw 2x 46:19 Transfer Rate
Verbatim 25GB 2x BD-RE VERBATIM0 2x 45:27 Transfer Rate

The BDX-S600U completed our Blu-ray writing tests without any problems. The drive wrote to all of our test media at its rated speeds and, looking at the transfer rates, you can see that it had no problems reading the discs back. 

Sadly, I was not able to test the BDX-S600U with any BDXL media. The discs are not available in the United States or Canada and importing them from Japan really isn't feasible as they cost anywhere from $30 to $90 each, depending on the type and capacity.

Performance Revisited:

Sony's new portable Blu-ray Disc writer performed pretty well throughout most of our tests. The BDX-S600U turned in some relatively good times when writing to BD-R and BD-R DL media and was able to read Blu-ray Discs at speeds as high as 6x. The drive also did reasonably well in our CD and DVD read tests. It read CD's at speeds as high at 24x and single layer DVD's at 8x. Writing CD's and DVD's wasn't a problem for the BDX-S600U either. For a portable drive, it turned in some respectable times and the writing quality was fairly good for the most part. With all of these things considered, the Sony BDX-S600U gets a solid 9 out of 10 for its performance.