Burning DVDs in FreeBSD

Yesterday I reported my results burning CDs with FreeBSD. This morning I tried creating a DVD of the Fedora Core 2 distribution. After I downloaded the 4.1 GB .iso from a mirror, I used MD5 to verify the checksum matched. Since the .iso was ready to burn, I set up my Plextor burner.

First I checked the media, which was Memorex 4X DVD-R 4.7GB (pictured at left, purchased at buy.com). I had already installed dvd+rw-tools, available in the ports tree as sysutils/dvd+rw-tools. Using the dvd+rw-mediainfo command, I checked the DVD in the burner:

# dvd+rw-mediainfo /dev/cd0
INQUIRY:                [PLEXTOR ][DVDR   PX-708A  ][1.06]
GET [CURRENT] CONFIGURATION:
 Mounted Media:         11h, DVD-R Sequential
 Media ID:              ProdiscS03
 Current Write Speed:   4.0x1385=5540KB/s
 Write Speed #0:        4.0x1385=5540KB/s
 Write Speed #1:        2.0x1385=2770KB/s
 Write Speed #2:        1.0x1385=1385KB/s
GET [CURRENT] PERFORMANCE:
 Write Performance:     4.0x1385=5540KB/s@[0 -> 2294911]
 Speed Descriptor#0:    02/2298495 R@8.0x1385=11080KB/s W@4.0x1385=5540KB/s
 Speed Descriptor#1:    02/2298495 R@8.0x1385=11080KB/s W@2.0x1385=2770KB/s
 Speed Descriptor#2:    02/2298495 R@8.0x1385=11080KB/s W@1.0x1385=1385KB/s
READ DVD STRUCTURE[#10h]:
 Media Book Type:       25h, DVD-R book [revision 5]
 Legacy lead-out at:    2298496*2KB=4707319808
READ DVD STRUCTURE[#0h]:
 Media Book Type:       25h, DVD-R book [revision 5]
 Last border-out at:    0*2KB=0
READ DISC INFORMATION:
 Disc status:           blank
 Number of Sessions:    1
 State of Last Session: empty
 Number of Tracks:      1
READ TRACK INFORMATION[#1]:
 Track State:           invisible incremental
 Track Start Address:   0*2KB
 Next Writable Address: 0*2KB
 Free Blocks:           2297888*2KB
 Track Size:            2297888*2KB

Everything looked ready to go, so I proceeded according to the directions in the FreeBSD Handbook:

# growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/cd0=FC2-i386-DVD.iso
Executing 'builtin_dd if=FC2-i386-DVD.iso of=/dev/pass0 obs=32k seek=0'
/dev/pass0: "Current Write Speed" is 4.1x1385KBps.
         0/4370640896 ( 0.0%) @0x, remaining ??:??
         0/4370640896 ( 0.0%) @0x, remaining ??:??
   8421376/4370640896 ( 0.2%) @1.8x, remaining 103:35
  27066368/4370640896 ( 0.6%) @3.9x, remaining 40:07
  45744128/4370640896 ( 1.0%) @3.9x, remaining 29:56
...edited...
4336517120/4370640896 (99.2%) @3.9x, remaining 0:06
4355194880/4370640896 (99.6%) @3.9x, remaining 0:02
builtin_dd: 2134112*2KB out @ average 3.9x1385KBps
/dev/pass0: flushing cache
/dev/pass0: updating RMA
/dev/pass0: closing disc

When I was done, I checked the media again:

# dvd+rw-mediainfo /dev/cd0
INQUIRY:                [PLEXTOR ][DVDR   PX-708A  ][1.06]
GET [CURRENT] CONFIGURATION:
 Mounted Media:         11h, DVD-R Sequential
 Media ID:              ProdiscS03
 Current Write Speed:   4.0x1385=5540KB/s
 Write Speed #0:        4.0x1385=5540KB/s
 Write Speed #1:        2.0x1385=2770KB/s
 Write Speed #2:        1.0x1385=1385KB/s
GET [CURRENT] PERFORMANCE:
 Write Performance:     4.0x1385=5540KB/s@[0 -> 2294911]
 Speed Descriptor#0:    02/2298495 R@8.0x1385=11080KB/s W@4.0x1385=5540KB/s
 Speed Descriptor#1:    02/2298495 R@8.0x1385=11080KB/s W@2.0x1385=2770KB/s
 Speed Descriptor#2:    02/2298495 R@8.0x1385=11080KB/s W@1.0x1385=1385KB/s
READ DVD STRUCTURE[#10h]:
 Media Book Type:       25h, DVD-R book [revision 5]
 Legacy lead-out at:    2298496*2KB=4707319808
READ DVD STRUCTURE[#0h]:
 Media Book Type:       25h, DVD-R book [revision 5]
 Last border-out at:    2134112*2KB=4370661376
READ DISC INFORMATION:
 Disc status:           complete
 Number of Sessions:    1
 State of Last Session: complete
 Number of Tracks:      1
READ TRACK INFORMATION[#1]:
 Track State:           complete incremental
 Track Start Address:   0*2KB
 Free Blocks:           0*2KB
 Track Size:            2134112*2KB
 Last Recorded Address: 2134111*2KB
FABRICATED TOC:
 Track#1  :             14@0
 Track#AA :             14@2134112
 Multi-session Info:    #1@0

I then mounted the DVD:

# mount -t cd9660 /dev/cd0 /cdrom
# ls /cdrom
.discinfo                       RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora
Fedora                          RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-rawhide
GPL                             RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-test
README-Accessibility            RPM-GPG-KEY-rawhide
README-en                       SRPMS
README-en.html                  TRANS.TBL
RELEASE-NOTES-en                autorun
RELEASE-NOTES-en.html           eula.txt
RPM-GPG-KEY                     images
RPM-GPG-KEY-beta                isolinux

It worked. I also mounted the DVD as /dev/acd0 on my ThinkPad, which appears to dmesg as the following:

acd0: DVDROM  at ata1-master UDMA33

I got this result by having 'hw.ata.atapi_dma=1' set in /boot/loader.conf. Without that setting, here is how the same drive appeared in dmesg:

acd0: DVDROM  at ata1-master PIO4

For reference, here is atacontrol output for the laptop:

$ sudo atacontrol list
ATA channel 0:
    Master:  ad0  ATA/ATAPI rev 5
    Slave:       no device present
ATA channel 1:
    Master: acd0  ATA/ATAPI rev 0
    Slave:       no device present

Having ATAPI DMA enabled helps with performance, according to this thread by someone having trouble burning with the same device I have. I believe because that posted is using an internal Plextor connected via ATA, he is in a different situation. I use a FireWire adapter on my laptop and desktop to connect my external Plextor drive.