14 DAY TRIAL // Well-known mainboard manufacturer, Taiwanese company ASUS has just introduced the DRW-24B5ST E-Green Series DVD writer, on its official website. This device is also jumping on the eco-conscience bandwagon and boasts 50% lower power consumption.
While it’s strange to brag about a device that’s doing exactly what it is supposed to do, it seems ASUS has no problem doing it.
When an optical drive is not being accessed by any program requesting it to read information on the disc inserted, the drive should spin down the disc and stop using power.
Most of the drives know how to do this – and they’re supposed to do it anyway – as this will lead to less wear and tear of the motor inside the ODD. Another reason is acoustics.
Spinning an optical disc at speeds of around 24x means that the information medium is spinning at more than 4500 RPM. That makes a lot of noise and generally, too much noise for the average consumer.
So spinning down when the disc is not accessed is quite normal and shouldn’t be touted as an achievement by ASUS.
Not using power when the ODD is completely empty is also normal. A DVD unit that spins the motor or uses power without having anything inside is a defective unit.
ASUS also claims that they’ve used special energy-efficient components that reduce the power draw further down when compared with a normal drive.
The DVD writer only sports a measly 1.5 MB of cache and it is priced at 31 USD. That’s around 25 EUR or 2,500 JPY.