Is this normal for a DVD drive?

Just got the Vostro 1200 with a 8X DVD writer. When I burn DVDs [till now from ISO images], it starts with a speed of 2x, then moves to 6x and then touches about 6x. It never reaches 8x [even though the media is 16x], and I'm pretty sure my desktop and other laptops did burn faster than this - in a sense - they had 4x drives but actually burnt at 4x.

Is it because the DVD burning starts from the inner region/ and hence is faster as the laser moves outwards? In which case evn my other drives should start slow and speed up?

 

DVD/CD record speeds rarely top out at the rated "MAX" speed....that is the "MAX" not "average".

Seems normal to me....

 

Really? Because I used to use Dell 8400 Dimension desktop with a max 48x CD Burner and it usually can hit 40x speed and the speed is still rising but usually by that time the disk would be finished.

 

Its normal, don't worry about it.
It is how it is, and you can't do nothing about it(unless you plan install change it with another one, which you probably won't do)

 

I think most notebook burners are CAV (constant angular velocity, which means they spin at constant rotation speed) while desktop burners may be CLV (constant linear velocity which means variable rotation speed to keep the speed past the laser constant). Notebook burners are constrained by power requirements which limits the potential to spin the disk faster when writing the inner tracks. Hence the progressive increase in burning speed as the burning moves towards the outside of the disk.

John

 

speeds are also limited by the firmware of the drive and how it is programmed to write to the media based on MID. It is possible that based on the MID of your blank media, that the drive has been programmed to write up to max 6x. It may write faster in other drive's based on their firmware info. Not all manufacturer's will have the same write speeds on the same media.