PX712UF DVD+/-R/RW and CD-R/RW drive

USB 2.0 Cable (left)
IEEE 1394 (FireWire) cable (middle)
AC adapter and power cord (right)

Cradle for vertical operation

Emergency eject tool (center)
1 piece of approved DVD+R media (bottom)
Plextor DVD with bundled software for writing DVDs and CDs (top left and top right)

PX-712UF Installation and Users Manual[/quote]
It's a good number of things, make sure you have them all.
As always, save the box. You never know when you may need to ship the drive somewhere.

Page 3 : Specifications

Minimum System Requirements

Pentium III 800 Mhz or Faster
128 MB RAM
USB 1.1 or 2.0 or IEEE 1394
1 GB Free Disk Space for CD
6 GB Free Disk Space for DVD

Recommended System Requirements

Pentium 4 1.6 Ghz or Faster
256 MB RAM
Onboard USB 2.0 or IEEE 1394
1 GB Free Disk Space for CD
6-10 GB Free Disk Space for DVD

Operating System

PC
: Windows XP, 2000, ME, 98SE

Macintosh
: OS 9.1 for FireWire and USB 1.1 or higher OSX for USB 2.0

Media Information

Date transfer rate: PCAV, CLV write, CAV read, CLV read
DVD Maximum Read: 16X (9.28-22.16 MB/sec)
DVD+VR and DVD-VR real time editing supported
DVD-RW DRD-DM (Distributed Real Time Defect Management) supported
DVD-Video disc Maximum Read with CSS: 2X
DVD+R/RW: 12X Write(8.31-16.62 MB/sec), 4X Rewrite
DVD-R/RW: 8X Write(8.31-11.08 MB/sec), 4X Rewrite
CD-R Maximum Read: 48X
CD-DA Maximum Read: 40X
CD-RW Maximum Read: 32X
CD-R: 48X Write (3-7.2 MB/sec)
CD-RW: 24X Rewrite (3-3.6 MB/sec)

USB 1.1 Performance

Most of us know that USB 2.0 has a maximum transfer rate of 480 Mbps and that IEEE 1394 transfers at 300 Mbps. If you decided to run the optical drive at USB 1.1 you will hurt the performance by a large margin. USB 1.1 only operates at 12 Mbps. When that happens you are left with CD-R and RW write of 4X, read at 6X and DVD performance at a mere 0.7X! Stick with USB 2.0 or IEEE 1394!

Recommended Media

The technology for optical drives has surpassed the technology for the media. With speeds such as 12X DVD+R, finding the media will not be easy. Plextor has included a list of media that it will definitely support.
12X DVD+R: Taiyo Yuden, Richo, Maxell (Although sold at 8X, PoweRec will select the write speed to be 12X)
8X-2.4X DVD+R: Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden, Ricoh, Maxell
4X-2.4X DVD+RW: Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim, Ricoh
8X-2X DVD-R: Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden, Maxell, TDK
4X DVD-RW: Victor, Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim
2X-1X DVD-RW: Victor, Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim, TDK
48X-4X CD-R: Maxell, Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden
16X-4X CD-R: Maxell, Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden, Ricoh (By disabling PoweRec, different write speeds can be obtained but at a compromise to the quality)
24X CD-RW: Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim
10X-4X CD-RW: Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim, Ricoh
All rewriteable media are rewriteable up to 1,000 times

Media Size Support

CD: 12 cm
DVD 12 cm

Initialization and Access

Sleep Mode: after 2 minutes of no access
Wake Mode: less than 5.5 seconds after sleep
Random CD Access Time: less than 100 ms
CD Initialization Time: less than 13 seconds
Random DVD Access Time: less than 150 ms
DVD Initialization Time: less than 13 seconds

Burst Read/Write: 33MB/sec (Ultra DMA Mode 2) 16.6 MB/sec (PIO Mode 4/DMA Mode 2)

Buffer: 8MB

Dimensions and Weight

Dimensions: 184mm x 52mm x 265 mm (WxHxD)
Weight: 3.80lbs

Reliability

MTBF: 60,000 hours
Power Consumption: 21 Watts
Tray Loading: 50,000 load/unload cycles
1 Year Full warranty (parts and labour)
Unlimited toll-free tech support

Regional Settings

Maximum of 5 changes

Front Panel

Eject: Auto Eject/Manual Emergency
LED Indicator:
-Yellow when initializing, reading or ejecting
-Green during standby and for Buffer Underrun Proof Technology or Lossless Linking/Zero Link is active
-Blinking amber when writing disk
Power Indicator:
-Illuminated blue when drive is power ON
Disc Loading: Auto

Mounting

Supports both veritcal and horizontal mounting.

Software Package

PlexTools Professional
Roxio Easy CD & DVD Creator 6
Roxio DVD Max
Roxio Drag-to-Disc
Roxio Toast Lite
Retrospect Backup
Adobe Acrobat Reader

Available Colors

It wouldn't be a complete UF optical drive if it only came in 1 color. You can purchase the PX712-UF in one of 6 ‘vibrant colors’: Ballistic Black, Sterling Silver, Wicked White, Ultimate Blue, Outrageous Orange and Radical Red.

Page 4 : Features

The technology used in the PX-712UF has not changed since the PX-712A drive.

Drive Features

PoweRec (Plextor Optimized Writing Error Reduction Control)

What a handful this abbreviation is. PoweRec allows you to adjust the laser power and writing speed for the specific media you may be using.

VariRec

Similar to PoweRec, VariRec allows you to change the writing strategy leaving you with the best possible quality on the disc. VariRec allows you to adjust the recording power to above or below the default level.

Silent Mode
If you find the drive is too loud for your needs you can tune it down some by controlling various speeds of the drive. You have the power to slow down the writing, reading, spin up, spin down, and tray speed. All of which is configurable through the PlexTools Professional software.

SpeedRead
As supported in the older models, SpeedRead is again supported with the PX-712UF. This allows you to play CSS DVD-Video discs at levels higher than the typical 2X. To enable, you can find the option in the PlexTools software or hold the eject button for 3 seconds while there is no media inside. Confirmation is given by 3 green blinks from the LED.
If you decided to reset your computer, you will need to reactivate SpeedRead if you want it again.

Black Tray
Plextor engineers believe the typical white tray created too much distortion in the optical drive. With the new black ones, it absorbs the reflections from the laser beam resulting in higher reading and writing qualities.

Flash Memory
Every so often a new firmware is released and this allows you to upgrade it without opening the drive. Not necessarily the best idea to open an optical drive if you donât know what you are doing. They are rather tricky to put back together.
Plextor recommends that you always update to the latest driver and download the latest firmware.

Self-test diagnostic
Self-explanatory for self-testing! One of the first things to do if you think youâre experiencing difficulties with your drive.
To use this feature, start by unpluggiing the USB or FireWire cable. Next, turn off the drive by switching the power toggle to ‘O’. Using a small flat object, slide SELF TEST switch to the ‘ON’ position. While holding the eject button, power on the unit. Insert a blank Plextor certified disc and close the drive. Allow the test to run and check the results with the manual.

Emergency Eject
If for some reason your drive will not eject the media out, there is always the manual method. Start by turning off the unit, then insert the included emergency eject tool until the disc tray clicks. You can now slide the tray out and remove the media. To close, just slowly push the tray back in.

Q-Check tests
At 12X DVD+R recording, you may have doubts about the quality of it. You can now put your fears to ease by checking the quality yourself. There are four different Q-Checks available.
Q-Check C1/C2/CU measures errors on commercially pressed CDs. C1 and C2 are different forms of error correction and CU are uncorrectable errors. C1 errors are relatively low level, C2 errors generally imply poor media or the drive is not reading or writing properly, and CU errors may mean the disc has been damaged.
Q-Check FE/TE measures the focusing and tracking error of the laser. This can be tested on both DVDs and CDs. Focus errors are how accurate or inaccurate the laser is. Poor media or a failing drive will contribute to the number of focus errors. Tracking errors determine how well the laser moves in a spiral motion. Again, poor media or a failing drive will contribute to these errors.
Q-Check Beta/Jitter Test determines the degree of beta and jitter on CDs and DVDs. Beta shows how powerful the laser is. If the beta value is too high or low then the difference between the data and the unburned region is undistinguishable. The jitter determines how uniform the data has been written onto the media. In this case, the lower the value; the higher the write quality.
Q-Check PI/PO tests DVDs for parity inner (PI) and parity outer fails (POF). This is the DVD equivalent of the C1/C2 error check on CDs. PIâs can be corrected while POFâs are considered failures. Having some of both is considered normal as long as there are not too many.

Lossless linking for DVD+R/RW
Allows you to edit and play DVD+R/RWs on standard DVD-ROM players.

Zero Link for DVD-R/RW
Essentially the same as Lossless linking but applies to DVD-R/RWs.

Variety of recording modes
TAO, DAO, SAO, Multi-session, variable, fixed packet writing, and CD-MRW (Mount Rainier) support. You name it and Plextor probably has it!

Buffer Underrun Proof Technology

Run as many applications as you like and with this old but amazing technology, you will rarely, almost never, get a coaster

OPC and ROPC
Optimum Power Control and Running OPC adjusts the laser power for the absolute best writing strategy

CD-TEXT
An extension to audio CDs where additional track information is provided. Sure beats the days of finding out the tracks are labeled 1, 2, 3 etc etc.

CD+G
Another extra to audio CDâs. With CD+G you can add graphics along with the audio data. With the correct player, you can play audio files while watching the graphics. Pretty much perfect for karaoke fans.

GigaRec
This feature allows you to store much more data than the rated CD capacity. You can also decrease the disc capacity and increase writing quality. This feature is applicable to CD-Rs only and can only be written at speeds of 4X or 8X in DAO mode. The downside of this feature is that Buffer Underrun Proof Technology is disabled and buffer underruns can occur. As well, once written with GigaRec, you must use software that recognizes GigaRec in order to access the data.

SecuRec
Password protect your files so only you have access to them. You must activate the password before writing to the media and only write using DAO for data (ISO 9660) CDs. To read the media, which has been password protected, you must install PlexTools or SecuViewer and unlock the password before accessing through Windows Explorer.

Overburn
If GigaRec isnât enough, you can always go back and use the classic Overburn technology to fit more data onto a single disc. A classic feature all new drives support.

Mt. Rainer
This is pretty much the latest thing with optical drives. Every review you encounter has a short little blurb on whether or not the drive supports Mt. Rainer. And yes, Plextor does support Mt. Rainer. A few of the things Mt. Rainer supports is automatic media formatting done in the background, drag and drop support within Windows Explorer, and file saving directly to the media through the âsave asâ function when selecting final destination. The rest of the details can be found at the Plextor University.

If you want to learn more about the technology used in the Plextor PX-712UF drive, please click here.

Page 5 : Installation

Test Machine 1:
Abit NF7-S rev 2.0
AMD Mobile 2500+ @ 200*12
Ultra 2*512MB PC3200 Dual Channel Kit Provided by Ultra Products
HIS ATI 9550 VIVO Provided by HIS
asetek KT03A-L30 Water Cooled Provided by asetek
Enermax 350 Watt Dual Fan PSU
Windows XP Pro SP1 + Cat 4.6

Test Machine 2:
Acer Travelmate TM290 XVi
Windows XP Pro SP1

Installation is quite simple and can be completed in just a few steps. First I plugged in the included USB cable to my already running computer. Then I slid the switch from SELF TEST to ‘OFF’ and connected the other end of the USB cable to the drive. I plugged in the AC adapter to the drive and turned ‘ON’ the unit. There's an included power adapter as the unit is powered externally and not through any of the controllers. Windows detected the drive and the hardware installation was done!

I popped in the Plextor DVD write Software and installed that. I installed both PlexTools Pro and Nero as well as updated the firmware to 1.0.3. I had started with firmware 1.0.2.

When I looked up the drive info it reported the Plextor PX-712UF as a PX-712A. I'm not exactly surprised by this either as an external drive can be simply thought of as an internal drive ported into an external case.

This is how all the tests were completed: Using the Nero CD DVD Speed, I created a CD or DVD Data Disc. I first ran the Transfer rate test then ran all the other tests at once and recorded the values. Using PlexTools Pro v2.14 I then tested for errors. Afterwards, I reset the machine and popped in another blank disc for more testing. The next three pages of benchmarks were conducted on Test Machine 1.
For comparison, I have referred to some of the numbers in the Plextor PX-712A review I completed back in early May.

Page 6 : DVD Benchmarking

For the DVD R benchmarks, I used a Taiyo Yuden 8X DVD+R capable of 12X speeds.

Write Speed

I took the image a second or two prematurely because last time when I did this test Nero decided to crash on me. Anyways, the DVD started writing at 6X and peaked at 12X around 2.7GB. This is significantly slower than the PX-712A as it was able to hit 12X at less than 1 GB! The total time for writing a DVD was still hovering around 6 minutes.

Transfer Rate

Seek, CPU and Burst Rate

Q-Check PI/PO

The difference between the PX-712UF and the PX-712A isn't all that much. There are two things that stick out. The first one is the much slower full seek time at 893ms as opposed to the 184ms time. The second is the error during writing. By going with the USB 2.0 the PIF count was about 1/5th of the 712A. Not to shabby. This means cleaner and fewer errors on your DVDs.

Page 7 : CD Benchmarking

For the CD Benchmarks, I used a Memorex 700MB 48X Black CD-R.

Write Speed

Transfer Rate

Seek, CPU, and Burst Rate

Q-Check C1/C2/CU

Once again, the two drives show very little difference. In these tests, the CD seek times are a little faster than the 712A but not by very much.

Page 8 : RW Benchmarking

DVD RW

For the DVD RW benchmarks, I used a generic piece of DVD+RW media made by Infodisc rated at 4.0X.

Write Speed

Transfer Rate

Seek, CPU and Burst Rate

Q-Check PI/PO

CD RW

For the CD RW testing, I used a 24X Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim DataLifePlus CD-RW.

Write Speed

Transfer Rate

Seek, CPU, and Burst Rate

Q-Check C1/C2/CU

Nothing of any real interest here compared to the PX712A. The error count is higher (712UF @ 78203 vs 712A @ 26990) , nothing that could really kill you in terms of major performance loss.

Page 9 : FireWire or USB 2.0

The difference between USB 2.0 and FireWire is about 80 Mbps. That's a fairly large chunk considering USB 1.1 only operates at 12Mbps. By testing the Plextor PX-712UF on my Acer Travelmate TM290XVi I'll be able to show the difference in performance. I'll be conducting the tests on a 4X DVD+RW and a 24X CD-RW.

USB 2.0

DVD RW

Write Speed

Transfer Rate

Seek, CPU and Burst Rate

Q-Check PI/PO

CD RW

Write Speed

Transfer Rate

Seek, CPU, and Burst Rate

Q-Check C1/C2/CU

FireWire

DVD RW

Write Speed

Transfer Rate

Seek, CPU and Burst Rate

Q-Check PI/PO

CD RW

Write Speed

Transfer Rate

Seek, CPU, and Burst Rate

Q-Check C1/C2/CU

That's about it in terms of comparing USB 2.0 and FireWire. Not that many differences; at least nothing that would make your DVD movies choppy when you watch them. Sticking with FireWire requires a little less CPU Usage when reading CDS, as well as it provides a more accurate burn and fewer errors. The advantage then flip-flops as you will notice bigger drops in CPU usage with the USB 2.0 over the FireWire for DVD usage.

During the benchmarking procedures, I went through about 20 DVDs and CDs combined and wrote on the rewritable's about 10 times. Most of the time I had no problems with the performance of the Plextor PX-712UF, however when I used some
real
cheap DVD-Rs rated at 4X, I was presented with a Nero Error ‘Write Error – Recovery Needed 030c07′. My recommendation is to stay far away from crappy DVDs, and I know these ones are crap as they only write at 2X on my LG-8082B DVD Writer.

Page 10 : Conclusion

We're now at the end of the review where I'm suppose to draw some sort of conclusion with this unit. I can't say it's the best damn thing there is, simply because it no longer is. It's perfect for those always on the go and don't want to bother porting over their IDE drive to some external box. However, if you're the kind of person that does most of their work on a desktop, you really shouldn't have to spend 300 dollars on this particular unit. Just around the corner are the 16X DVD writers as well as the Dual Layer technology. Without doubt, I can safely say anything above 8X right now is still for enthusiasts and a bit extreme for most users. Going from 8X to 12X saves you about 2 minutes but will set you back a fair bit more in your wallet. There's also the fact that 12X media is not yet readily available and from what I've seen the next big batch will be at 16X.

What I can say is that this drive is very sweet. If you already have the 708UF, then don't upgrade quite so fast. However, if you're in the market for a very fast external drive, then this may be it. With the 8MB Buffer, you don't need to worry about creating a coaster while running all your favorite applications.

Advantages

Sleek Looking
Fast DVD writing!
Supports both USB 2.0 and FireWire

Disadvantages

Expensive
Media not readily available
No Dual Layer support

Thanks to Plextor for lending us a sample!