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The original test scores that we posted for the review were significantly slower than ones we made after the fact. It appears that the drive doesn't initialize properly when it is booted up with the system for the first time and that it needs to be turned off and then back on after the Firewire card has been fully installed. We noticed this effect on multiple Firewire cards, on multiple systems, and in both Windows 98 and Windows 2000. In light of these findings, here are the new, faster numbers:

Click on Images for the entire CDTachs.

Plextor W1610TA CD Tach 98

Que!Fire Win98 CDTach on Aten & Belkin Firewire Cards

Que!Fire Win2K CDTach on Aten & Belkin Firewire Cards

Two NIC cards were used for these new scores -- an Aten IC-1394 and a Belkin Firewire / USB combo card (F5U008-PC) -- and the tests were run in both Windows 98 and Windows 2000.

The numbers are virtually identical to those of the Plextor 16/10/40A drive (which, as you'll recall, is the same unit used for the Que! Fire drive). This eliminates the theory that the Firewire interface is the limitation in speed. This also shows that the Firewire to IDE bridge that is used also doesn't limit the speed of this drive, as some had suggested (these bridges tend to max out around 15MB/s, much more bandwidth than a CD-R drive can utilize).

While I have your attention I should clear up another small issue with the initial review of this product. There was some concern that the slightly different test beds would have an impact of the test scores we compared between the Plextor and Que! Fire drives. To quell these concerns we rescored the Que! Fire drive on the exact system that the was used to score the Plextor unit. The result? Take a look:

Phil's Que!Fire Win98 CDTach 98

The numbers are all but identical the other system. In fact, these are marginally slower, but only by a minute and functionally-mute amount.

Since my original review of this drive gave it such a high rating (including the Editor's Choice award), these new findings only make the Que! Fire 16/10/40 CD-RW even better. This is a superb drive that I recommend quite highly for those looking to an external CD burning solution for their data transfer needs.

Find the Lowest Prices for the Que! Fire External CD-RW 16x10x40