Compact Disc

The drive specifications tell the drive's performance capabilities. These specifications commonly include the following:

• The data transfer rate, which specifies how much data the drive can read from a data CD and transfer to the host computer when reading one large, sequential chunk of data.
• The access time, which is the delay between the drive receiving the command to read and its actual first reading of the data.
• The buffer size, which is the size of the cache of memory stored in the drive. Not all drives are equipped with memory buffers.