Plextor UltraPlex 40x drives

[Athlex]

The "max" drive uses Ultra SCSI (20MB/sec) and the "Wide" drive uses wide Ultra SCSI (40MB/sec).
I would assume the wide drive is faster because of its interface, but plextor's website seems to push the speed of the 40max drive.
Can anyone clarify this or point me towards a review that compares the two?
Thanks!

 

[chansen]

Very similar performance. I have the Wide, but the 40max is just as fast, as no CD ROM drive can make use of the extra bandwidth.

I don't know where the reviews are, but by fractions of a percent, the 40max is faster, as I recall.

Great drives, and very quiet.

Buy whichever is cheapest, assuming you don't need an adapter.

 

[Zach]

Don't get the max, leave your 68pin connections for HDD's, whether it be SE or LVD.

 

[Athlex]

Thanks.
Plextor's site seemed to emphasize that the max drive could spin at 8000rpm (ooh ) and that the wide drive uses CAV. I assumed both did, but it makes sense that they perform the same. Probably the same drive just with different interfaces.
So does the max use a 50 pin connector and the Wide use a 68 pin connector? (or the other way around)

Edit: I'm planning on buying a dual channel SCSI card with a 68 pin LVD connector and 68/50 pin SE connectors, so the CD-ROM on a 68 pin port would be ideal since I'll probably use the 50 pin port for an external scanner.

 

[RSMemphis]

Wide uses 68 pin, yes...

Edit: Never mind what I wrote below, saw that the second channel is SE only, anyway.
If you really only want to use Wide, then by all means go for the 40Wide.

(Make sure that the 40Wide can do LVD if you plan on using LVD devices on that strand of your SCSI controller. )

 

[ikar0s]

Max can do DAE almost twice as fast as the Wide drive; thats the main difference.

 

[Athlex]

Aha...good to know. What kind of speed difference are we looking at?

 

[ikar0s]

23.7x DAE vs 32.1x DAE, so not twice as fast, my bad.

 

[Athlex]

Still, pretty decent speeds. I'm assuing the second speed is the MAX drive?

 

[ikar0s]

Correct, but I'm assuming you're going to buy a brand new drive.

There are two versions of the MAX drive. One is limited to the 1.0x firmware, and one is limited to the 1.1x firmware.

If the drive has the 1.1x firmware, it can do the faster DAE. The 1.0x firmware drives do DAE just as fast as the Wide's (because the Wide's can only take the 1.0x firmware).

And you cannot update a 1.0x firmware drive to a 1.1x firmware, so either you get it from the factory like that, or not at all.

 

[Athlex]

How strange. They just use ROM chips that can't be flashed? or does Plextor not release their firmware updates.
Are there any other differences aside from DAE speeds between the different firmware versions?

 

[ikar0s]

The ROMs can be flashed, and Plextor releases their firmware updates on their website, but somehow any drive with 1.0x firmware cannot be updated to 1.1x.

I believe there might be a mechanical difference between the 1.1x Max drives, and the 1.0x Max & Wide drives that allows the former to have higher DAE.

Other than that though, the drives are within a few percentage points of each other in terms of read peformance.