The latest edition to AOpen's ever-growing range of optical drives is the fast performing DVRW2412 Pro drive, a DVD+R /+RW burner.

The DVRW2412 writes DVDs at 2.4-speed for both +R and +RW media and has a 2MB buffer. CD speeds are fairly quick too; CD-R is 12-speed, CD-RW is 10-speed and CD read is 32-speed. The drive's DVD read speed is a nimble 8-speed.

The drive also has the latest AOpen buffer under-run technology built in. You may have seen Just Link and Just Speed before (they are technologies found in all the latest AOpen optical drives), but LossLess Linking is a DVD-only technology.

Just Link overcomes many issues associated with writing at 12-speed and faster, preventing buffer under-runs which can occur when the PC is interrupted to do other tasks while writing. It works by intentionally interrupting the write cycle until the buffer refills and then carries on writing where it left off. Just Speed prevents writing errors by deciding the most appropriate copy speed for the media being written. LossLess Linking keeps the data gap to within 1 micron when adding or deleting files, and maintains compatibility with DVD-ROM drives even when additional data is added to a +RW disk, which is a nice trick.

Also, the drive uses Background Formatting to speed up the time it takes to format a disc. It does this by formatting only a portion of the disk, small enough to allow the initial write, and then resumes formatting the rest of the disk when the drive is not reading or writing.

The AOpen DVRW2412 comes with an impressive amount of goodies in the box. Audio cable and screws are included, although there's no IDE cable. There's a single piece of each recording media the drive supports; 32-speed CD-R, 12-speed CD-RW, 2.4-speed DVD+R and 2.4-speed DVD+RW. The generous collection of software consists of CyberLink PowerDVD, Mediostream Neo DVD, Ulead Video Studio 6, Nero and InCD.