Review: Plextor Plexeraser PXOE100E optical drive

When a CD or DVD comes to the end of its useful life, you probably bin it and forget it. There are some instances, though, when you want to take a bit more care of its disposal; when the disc contains sensitive data, for instance.

It needn’t be MI5-type plans, it could just be personal accountancy details, digital photos or videos. Yes, you could snap the disc in half but the dye inside the disc, used in the writing or rewriting process, leaks out from between its plastic laminations.

Plextor’s new Plexeraser PXOE100E completely erases the contents of a CD or DVD, but without physically breaking the disc. To do this, it uses a high-energy laser to burn away the pattern of data ones and zeros left by a CD or DVD recorder or rewriter.

The PXOE100E, which is fitted in an external, standalone case, has just a small, block power supply and no other connections. It can’t read or write discs of any type. In fact, it’s very clearly marked with labels on the outer case and on the tray that all discs put into it will be destroyed.

This is a slight exaggeration, as the disc won't be recognised by any other optical media drive after the erasure. The PXOE100E can handle CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW and DVD+RW discs, and erases dual (DL) as well as single-layer discs.

During the erasing process, the disc is marked on its recording side with a series of thin, concentric bands, so you can tell it has been erased. The process is very quiet – we could hardly hear it running as it wiped our discs. We tried it on several discs and recorded times of three minutes to erase a CD-R and DVD+R disc and five minutes 19 seconds for a dual-layer DVD+R.

The PXOE100E works well, is relatively fast and quiet in operation. However, £130 is a lot to pay for the method, when snapping the discs in two will also render them useless. You could argue it's less destructive and eco-friendly but there's still the issue of disc disposal after data has been wiped, unless you collect drinks coasters.

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