Ricoh MP9120ADP

CD rewriter drives are nothing new; but just how fast can these things get. Moreover, just how fast do they need to get? Ricoh has released a combination drive which incorporates a CD-ROM, a DVD-ROM and a CD-RW in one unit. The DVD read speed is 8x, the CD-ROM read speed is 32x, and the CD-RW writes at up to 12x and rewrites at 10x - sounds great on paper.

Our Labs technicians tested the CD-RW writing speed twice with a 634Mb single file and then again with thousands of individual files, and it performed pretty well. On the first test the MP-9120A managed 1592Kb/s and on the second, 1535Kb/s - both good speeds.

For the CD-RW speed we used InCD, the UDF packet-writing software that comes with the drive, and it ran at 923Kb/s, which isn't bad. The DVD reads at 8x so you won't have any problems playing movies or installing DVD-ROM software.

The most important feature is the new JustLink technology, which prevents you getting buffer under-runs that cause failures during writing of discs. It stops the writing process, but marks where it has stopped and returns to that point once the information is running again. This is very similar to Sanyo's Burn-Proof technology, but Ricoh claims that JustLink creates a much smaller gap when it pauses writing, thus improving quality.

At a penny under £250, the MP-9120A represents fair value for the convenience of a combination drive like this. Even so, combination drives have their disadvantages. For example, unless you have a second drive in your PC, copying CDs involves writing disc 'images' to the hard drive before copying them back to a CD.

This is a good-value deal that is easy to install, easy to use and performs very well. The JustLink technology is the real icing on the cake, and will save you countless wasted CD-Rs.

Contact
Ricoh: 020 8261 4000; www.ricoh-europe.com

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