Sony DRU-530A DVD Writer

Help us keep the list up to date and Submit new DVD and Blu-ray Writers here.

What is the DVD Write speeds? CAV, CLV, PCAV, ZCLV. Read our DVD Writer colum explanation.

Search DVD Writer: (Leave empty to search for all) with these features:
+ List all features
Order by: Hits:

test

1 DVD Writer hits, Showing 1 to 1 DVD Writers

DVD Writer

Write support
CDR, DVDR, BDR, HDDVDR

Read
speed

Connection
Buffer, Bit

Price

Best

Rating

Comments

Sony DRU-530A

OEM:Accesstek
Chipset:Sanyo

40xCDR CAV
24xCDRW PCAV
8xDVD-R ZCLV
4xDVD-RW CLV
~~DVD-RDL~~
8xDVD+R PCAV
4xDVD+RW CLV
~~DVD+RDL~~
~~DVD-RAM~~

~~BD-R~~
~~BD-RE~~
~~BD-R DL~~
~~BD-RE DL~~
~~HDDVD-R~~
~~HDDVD-RW~~
~~HDDVD-RDL~~
~~HDDVD-RWDL~~
~~HDDVD-RAM~~

40xCD
12xDVD
~~BDROM~~
~~HDDVD~~

EIDE, 2MB
More info

$250

6.4/10
41 votes
Read 51
comments
(71961 views)

Post comment

DVD Media comments for this DVD Writer (click on the link to read the comments):
1 BenQ 4xDVD+R (DAXON...AZ1) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Bulkpaq 4xDVD-R (PRINCO......) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Bulkpaq 4xDVD+R (PRODISC.R02) comments, 0 good, 0 mixed, 1 poor.
1 Commodore 4xDVD-R (VDSPMSAB 01.) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Datasafe Media 2xDVD-RW (RITEKW01....) comments, 0 good, 0 mixed, 1 poor.
2 Datawrite Yellow (V2) 4xDVD-R (RITEKG04....) comments, 1 good, 1 mixed, 0 poor.
2 Esa 8xDVD-R (CMC MAG. AE1) comments, 2 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Fujifilm 8xDVD-R (FUJIFILM03..) comments, 0 good, 1 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Fujifilm 2xDVD-RW (MCC 01RW11n9) comments, 0 good, 1 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Fujifilm 2.4xDVD+R (RICOHJPNR00) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Fujifilm 4xDVD+RW (RICOHJPNW11) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
2 Fujifilm 1xDVD-R (RITEKG03....) comments, 2 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Fujifilm 4xDVD-R (TYG01.......) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
2 Fujifilm 8xDVD+R (YUDEN000T02) comments, 2 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 GQ (Great Quality) 4xDVD-R (LEADDATA01..) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 HP 4xDVD+R (CMC MAG.F01) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 HP 2.4xDVD+R (RICOHJPNR00) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Imation 1xDVD-R (CMC00RG200..) comments, 0 good, 0 mixed, 1 poor.
1 Intenso 2.4xDVD+RW (OPTODISCOP1) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Intenso 4xDVD-R (OPTODISCR004) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Intenso 2xDVD-RW (OPTODISCW002) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 KHypermedia 2xDVD-R (CMC MAG.....) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 KHypermedia 1xDVD-R (TDKG02000000) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Liquid Video 2xDVD-R (OPTODISCK001) comments, 0 good, 1 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Liquid Video 2.4xDVD+R (OPTODISCOP1) comments, 0 good, 0 mixed, 1 poor.
2 Liquid Video 2.4xDVD+R (OPTODISCOR4) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 1 poor.
1 Maxell 8xDVD-R (RITEKG05....) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
3 Maxell 4xDVD-R (TYG01.......) comments, 2 good, 0 mixed, 1 poor.
2 Memorex 4xDVD-R (CMC MAG. AF1) comments, 1 good, 1 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Memorex 4xDVD+R (CMC MAG.F01) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Memorex 8xDVD-R (FUJIFILM03..) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
2 Memorex 4xDVD-R (ProdiscS03) comments, 2 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
2 Memorex 4xDVD+R (RICOHJPNR01) comments, 2 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Memorex 2xDVD-RW (RITEKW01....) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
2 Memorex 2xDVD-RW (TDK502sakuM3) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 1 poor.
1 Mitsumi 4xDVD+R (........001) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Optodisc 4xDVD-R (OPTODISCR004) comments, 0 good, 0 mixed, 1 poor.
1 Princo 1xDVD-R (PRINCO......) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 RiData 4xDVD-RW (RITEKW04....) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 RiDisc 8xDVD-R (MCC 02RG20) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Ritek 4xDVD-R (RITEKG04....) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 SKS 8xDVD+R (RITEK...R03) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Sky 4xDVD+R (POMSA0010R.) comments, 0 good, 0 mixed, 1 poor.
1 Sonic 2xDVD-R (LONGTEN 001.) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Sony 4xDVD+R (RICOHJPNR01) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Sony 2.4xDVD+RW (RICOHJPNW01) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 TDK 8xDVD+R (CMC MAG.E01) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 TDK 16xDVD+R (CMC MAG.M01) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 TDK 2.4xDVD+RW (MCC.....A01) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 TDK 4xDVD+R (RICOHJPNR01) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 TDK 2xDVD-RW (TDK502sakuM3) comments, 0 good, 1 mixed, 0 poor.
2 TDK 8xDVD-R (TTG02.......) comments, 2 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Teon 8xDVD-R (CMC MAG. AE1) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 UL-Tran Media 4xDVD-R (VDSP.SAB 01.) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Verbatim (DataLifePlus) 8xDVD-R (MCC 02RG20) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Verbatim (DataLifePlus) 8xDVD+R (MCC.....003) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
Post your DVD Media comments here

Comments

51 comments, Showing 26 to 50 comments

<- Back - Next ->

Bought the drive and updated the firmware from Sony to 2.0a. After that the drive was very unstable. For instance burning DVD movies with Nero and windows would not recognize the disk afterwards but the disk would play in another DVD player or TV/DVD player (and this was with a Sony DVD discs)! Called Sony and the ever so gently put in, get the 2.0c firmware just released. I flashed the bios on the drive , and behold EVERY SINGLE DISC that would not play before ALL OF A SUDDEN WORKS LIKE A CHARM. Thanks alot Sony. Hours and hours of frustration. But After this experience I and after my anger with them has subsided, I would say the drive works well. Buy media that works with their recommended list on the htp://sony.storagesupport.com/ , very picky about media you burn with, but in the end you just get TDK DVD's and have done with it.

Comments posted by mtarchal from United States, April 20, 2004. Rated this writer 7 of 10.

Just installed my 2nd Sony unit. Like the first one I returned, I cannot get it to eject - at all. What am I doing wrong? Eject button does not work, nor OS command. Lights comes on, goes out...nothing. Tray does not kick out. Grrrr... if this one is also a lemon, I'm moving on to another brand. I don't see any shipping locks, etc., nor is anything like thqat mentioned in the setup guide. Am I losing it?

Comments posted by cjack from United States, April 19, 2004. Rated this writer No rating.

had this for 3 weeks, works great. burned everything that i put in dvd+r/rw & dvd-r/rw

Comments posted by neve from United States, April 16, 2004. Rated this writer 9 of 10.

First one I got refused to recognise ANY blank media (CD and DVD). Replacement unit is working fine so far.
Burned a couple of CD-R's and CD-RW's without problems.

Also burned a couple of DVD+R(HP-Ricoh and Verbatim),
and both works fine in my Sony DVP-930 player.

However, it refuses to recognise a Melody DVD-R that works fine in my DVD-Player and ALL DVD-ROM drives that I've tested.

So, no coasters yet, and let's hope for the best.
8/10 for all the hassles I've had.

Comments posted by Riaan Louw from South Africa, April 16, 2004. Rated this writer 8 of 10.

Bought one early march. Could not write DVD but could write CD. Destroyed 3 of my Verbatim DVDs. Returned to the shop and got a new replacement. Works fine until a month later. It suddenly stops and could not read or write DVD anymore. Returned it yesterday. I asked an IT guy working in a private hospital and he told me that SONY is one of the worst burner around. My advise to anyone, do not attempt anything SONY. The headache and heartache is just not worth it. SONY is in serious decline over the years. Forget the name.

Comments posted by mark from Malaysia, April 11, 2004. Rated this writer 1 of 10.

Hope you know that Sony has left DVD-Writer Business. The last Writer that is really made by Sony was the DRU-510A. The DRU-530A is identical tho the "Optorite DW-081" and to the "MSI MS-8408 DR8A".

Comments posted by Damian from Germany, April 07, 2004. Rated this writer No rating.

As my first dvd writer, i must say that the sony dru530a is fully responding to my attemps. It never failed any dvd-r from princo or kingpro and i have burned over 50 for now. SONY did a great job with this product.

Comments posted by francois from Canada, April 06, 2004. Rated this writer 10 of 10.

Just picked up the 530A and It works well with the DVD-R media that would not work well with my Liteon 411s, so this makes me happy.

Comments posted by Unclebud from United States, April 04, 2004. Rated this writer No rating.

I'm having the same issues as the previous recent posts. I've successfully made 1 DVD+R and 10 coasters. I'm using Memorex 4x DVD+R's and have noticed the discoloration also. It looks as if one of my kid's took a purple sharpie and drew rings on them. Burns CD-R's till the cows come home, though. Which would be great if that's what I wanted this drive to do. I've always favored Sony CD drives/burners, this experience has been very disappointing. I'm getting ready to enter the hell known as tech support with Sony. Any of the previous posters had any luck?

Comments posted by mhurst from United States, April 02, 2004. Rated this writer No rating.

Not Impressed...

Had for 8 weeks and now will only play half of any movie.

Sony missed the target on this burner.

Comments posted by Arrow22 from United States, March 28, 2004. Rated this writer 2 of 10.

My new Sony dru-530 with the latest firmware is making coasters, along with this I see a strange discoloration on the media. It's really bad with cheap disks, not as bad with name brand media. The cheap dvds worked fine with my sony dru 500. Seems the 530 is using too much write current or something. The name brand dvd;s do work even with the discoloration.

Very disapointed, SONY has always been good, not this one..

Comments posted by jeryray from United States, March 28, 2004. Rated this writer No rating.

I have the same problem as Matt discussed in his March 15 post directly below. It worked fine for 3 months and then suddenly all DVD functions stopped working. I can't write or even read commercial DVD's. However, all CD functions still work. The 5 to 6 tech support people I talked with tried their best but obviously they have not been given the tools or training to support this product. To make matters worse, they told me they could not authorize an RMA on Saturday. I now have to call back on Monday to talk with a supervisor. We will see how things go when I call back. I wonder if Matt's issue was ever resolved?

Comments posted by Mike from United States, March 28, 2004. Rated this writer 2 of 10.

Used the writer for 2 weeks, then it failed recording a dvd and would no longer recognize any dvd or dvd-? disks, even retail. It was still able to record to CDR/RW. Spent three hours with four different tech support reps. Each causing more damage to my PC, having me unload all MB drivers and many software apps. This was obviously not a software problem since it was working with no problems up till that point. Unlike most hardware vendors that will send you a new unit and prepay shipping to return the defective unit, I'm forced to pay for shipping to return it to Sony to diagnose the problem.

Comments posted by Matt from United States, March 15, 2004. Rated this writer 3 of 10.

This is my upgrade drive from the 500AX. I had bought a Plextor 708a but It has so many issues and got so many coasters out of it that I replaced it with the 530A. Installation was a sinch and I had to do no changes from my previous install. I've been able to burn at 8x on Verbatim DataLivePlus +R discs with no issues. I've created ghost Images using Symantec Ghost '03 on both 4x and 2.4x +RW media. I've also burned a DVD copy using the simple option on DVD X Copy and worked great on both PC and Panasonic HTIB. I've yet to try it on -R/RW.

I'm using Roxio Easy CD & DVD Creator 6, DVD X Copy Platinum, Symantec Norton Ghost 2003.

One thing to note is that when I burned the DVD movie I had Drag-To-Disc installed I only disable it while I burn and I also had the antivirus running. This drive will work flawlessly even with those apps. To me this means no fussing or windows tweaking for a great burn. Who needs all that hassle anyway. I don't that's for sure.

This is a solid drive and I recommended!

Comments posted by Ivan from United States, March 14, 2004. Rated this writer 10 of 10.

Purchased this writer last Thursday March 3rd. Installation in Full tower case was a breeze. Immediately recognized by Windows XP on boot. Did not respond to Fujifilm +RW disks at all. It kept asking for me to insert a blank dvd when the Fuji dvd was already there. Returned Fuji media and picked up Sony, Memorex, Princo, Toysan, and TDK in +R, -R, +RW, -RW. All work flawlessly and no coasters at all. I have upgraded firmware to 2.0. Also upgraded Mobo Bios. Very fast writes especially on the fly between Sony DVD-Rom drive and the Sony DVD Burner.

Comments posted by Peter from United States, March 08, 2004. Rated this writer 9 of 10.

update firmware from the sony site,and your writer will burn at 8 speed for DVD-R and 4 speed for DVD-RW.

Comments posted by t132637 from Belgium, March 05, 2004. Rated this writer 9 of 10.

Burning with the DRU-530A on Memorex 4x DVD-R to the full capacity of the media seems to produce a skipping/freezing problem with the media at the end of movies. I will be trying some new Ritek's later and will post my new results.

Comments posted by Jim Bean from United States, March 02, 2004. Rated this writer 6 of 10.

xcelent burner!!!
The new firmware 2.0a work fine (i've burn 10dvd-r) It rocks.
Advice... don't make dvd-r with copytodvd. they will not run.

Comments posted by mike from Portugal, February 27, 2004. Rated this writer 10 of 10.

I bought this dvd burner last week. I have made 10 dvd's using memorex dvd+r media. I have made 1 coaster. (Tech tip: DO NOT let 6 year old son near the eject button during burn process), that was the reason for the only coaster so far. I was very pleased with the setup and the ease of use. I purchased nero 6 with the burner and they go hand in hand to create the home video from sony camcorder.

Comments posted by Cam from United States, February 25, 2004. Rated this writer 9 of 10.

Sony its Sony.... what can I say
No glitches, no freezes, high speed

nec - ****
pioneer - ***

SONY - *****

Comments posted by Mike from Portugal, February 20, 2004. Rated this writer 10 of 10.

Bought this writer a week ago
can not get it to write to any -r media really fussy
but it will write to any +rw media that ive bought

Comments posted by Paul ODavies from United Kingdom, February 19, 2004. Rated this writer 4 of 10.

Bought it, burned 3 disks and it just quit wouldn't read or write I did everything even physically removed it from CPU and reinstalled it. Support sucks talked to three techs and I couldn't understand anything they said. Sent it back to Sony for repair we'll see what happens

Comments posted by Rex from United States, February 06, 2004. Rated this writer No rating.

Easy to install and simple software, you can start burning dvd's after 5min. (installing the sofware)just by readingthe quick-start-guide.I've recorded a DVD-r (MAN) and it didn't play in my player ( even not in the same recorder) I've burnt a new one ( DVD-R4.7 Sentinel)it played on my dvd player UPSIDE-DOWN....??

Comments posted by JL from Belgium, February 04, 2004. Rated this writer 4 of 10.

Bought this burner yesterday. I was given a DVD+R disc with a movie by someone, which did NOT work with my DVD player. I was able to read the DVD+R disc, image it on HDD, and burn it to a DVD-RW disc which my DVD player does recognize. It was a breeze, using Nero 6.3

The movie played wonderfully. (I only watched the first 5 minutes though to test)

Although my experience with this burner is VERY limited at this moment (only had it for a day) the installation was easy, Windows Server 2003 recognized the burner also (the evaluation version on second partition for testing) and the first burn worked perfectly.

Comments posted by Maarten from United States, January 28, 2004. Rated this writer 8 of 10.

Great Burner I Purchased a week ago and so far have had no coaster. I'm using it in an external firewire enclosure because it is on my HP ZE5270 Laptop (2.4Ghz 512MB Ram 60GB 7200 RPM IBM Hard Drive) works Great. Just a warning the software that comes with it is ok but i unistalled it after a bit and got Nero 6, its way better

Comments posted by Ryan from United States, January 26, 2004. Rated this writer 10 of 10.

51 comments, Showing 26 to 50 comments

<- Back - Next ->

1 DVD Writer hits, Showing 1 to 1 DVD Writers

Column Explanation:

Click on this for more technical information.

New comments= New comments since your last visit.
New Writer = New DVD Writer since your last vist.

OEM
Original Equipment Manufacturer.

Chipset
The manufacturer of the main chipset the DVD writer/recorder is based on.

Write support / Read support
DVD-R = Works
~~DVD-R~~ = Is not supported
DVD-R? = Not tested

Single Layer(4.7GB) write speeds
1x (CLV) = about 58 minutes
2x (CLV) = about 29 minutes
2.4x (CLV) = about 24 minutes
4x (CLV) = about 14.5 minutes
6x (CLV/ZCLV) = about 10-12 minutes
8x (PCAV/ZCLV) = about 8-10 minutes
12x (PCAV/ZCLV) = about 6.5-7.5 minutes
16x (CAV/ZCLV) = about 6-7 minutes

Dual/Double Layer(8.5GB) write speeds
1x CLV = about 105 minutes
2.4x CLV = about 44 minutes
4x CLV = about 27 minutes

Single Layer (4.7GB) read speeds
1x read speed is 1.321MB/s = ~56 minutes
6x CAV (avg. ~4x) read speed is max 7.93MB/s = ~14 minutes
8x CAV (avg. ~6x) read speed is max 10.57MB/s = ~10 minutes
12x CAV (avg. ~8x) read speed is max 15.85MB/s = ~7 minutes
16x CAV (avg. ~12x) read speed is max 21.13MB/s = ~5 minutes

DVD Write types
CAV = Constant Angular Velocity, the DVD is written at a constantly increasing speed.
CLV = Constant Linear Velocity, the DVD is written at a constant speed.
ZCLV = Zone Constant Linear Velocity, the DVD is divided into zones. After each zone the write speed is increased.
PCAV = Partial Constant Angular Velocity, the DVD is being written at an increasing speed until a certain speed. After this speed it will not increase anymore.

Connection
Desktop = Standalone desktop DVD Recorder
EIDE = Computer DVD Writer with EIDE/IDE connection
SCSI = Computer DVD Writer with SCSI connection
USB = Computer desktop DVD Writer with USB 2.0 or/and 1.1 connection
FireWire = Computer desktop DVD Writer with IEEE 1394/FireWire/i.Link connection (some standalone desktop dvd recorder supports this also but then it is usually to connect your DV camera to the recorder)

Rating
The first rating is based on a weighted rank (the true Bayesian), it requires at least 5 votes to get a weighted rating.
The second rating between the ( ) is a normal average rating.

Visit our sponsors! Try DVDFab and backup Blu-rays!