Plextor has announced that the PlexWriter 24/10/40A is now available. The new IDE burner combines Burn-Proof and Zone-CLV servo positioning to ensure glitch-free recordings at the maximum 24x recording speed. Plextor's tests show that the drive can record a 74-minute CD-R disc in just under four minutes, significantly faster than the previous 16x PlexWriter. However, the speed hasn't changed for recording rewritable media, only for single-write CD-R discs.
Burn-Proof, developed by Sanyo, has become an important feature on CD-R drives over the last year, as it prevents the buffer underrun errors that create defective recordings. Zone-CLV (which stands for constant linear velocity) is a new development that varies the recording speed of the drive when transitioning between the tight inner tracks of a disc and the outer tracks.
The PlexWriter 24/10/40A carries a retail price of $289.