Everyone has optical drives and as time has passed they’ve gotten faster and faster, one problem I’ve encountered though is that for newer drives there is no media for the latest speeds, something I’ve never been able to quite figure out. IDE is becoming obsolete, with SATA becoming the new standard, first it was hard drives now more and more companies are coming out with optical SATA drives as well. On a personal note I’ve moved now to all SATA connections, so no more IDE for me in my main system.

Today I’ve got a combination review and article for you, more of a roundup, or comparison piece really. Samsung sent me their new Super Write-Master 22X DVD burner for review, just the drive though, the OEM version basically, and I’ve been meaning to do a small article about optical drives, comparing their speeds, so I figured why not incorporate the new Samsung into the article.

The Super Write-Master features LightScribe, which I’m sure everyone knows about by now, but it’s main feature is of course the speed of the drive, writing DVDs at 22x, though there is no media capable of that yet that I know of. Another great feature of this drive is the SpeedPlus which is an optomised algorithm for writing at the fastest possible speeds, along with that the drive also features Speed Adjustment Technology, low noise and Buffer Under Run Technology. I’ve put the Samsung up against four other drives for comparison, and interestingly, during my testing I found the Super Write-Master will burn a 16x DVD at over 18X speeds, coming in at just a little over 5 minutes to burn a DVD, with the closest competitor coming in at almost 6 minutes.

The drive I received for review from Samsung was a bare OEM drive, so no unboxing today, and not a lot of pictures:
 

Specifications:

  

Lite-On DH-20A4P 20x

Lite-On DH-20A6S/DX-20A6Q 20x

Pioneer DVR-111DBK 16x

SAMSUNG SH-S223Q/BEBN 22X

I used Nero CD/DVD speed to test all of the drives creation time and benchmarks as well for both CDs and DVDs. I used 52x CD media and 16X DVDR+ media for testing.

First up is the CD comparison graph:

The LiteOn drives are a bit faster overall..

Here’s the DVD results:

 

as we can see the Samsung Super-WriteMaster is the fastest at creating DVDs, coming in at almost 30 seconds faster than the closest competitor.

I also noticed the Samsung tops out at a speed of 18.19X using the 16X media, so I’m guessing that’s the SpeedPlus kicking in there… I’m sure if I could fine media that burns at 22x it would be a bit quicker at DVD creation.

I also played with the LightScribe as well, which is rather cool, but it is time consuming, a good 20 minutes to create a label, and media costs a bit more than standard stuff.

Conclusion:
There’s no doubt the Samsung Super Write-Master is most likely the fastest drive out there today, it’s quiet and from my testing results you can see it burns media pretty fast. The drive is also fairly quiet, which is very nice as some drives are very loud, I also had no problems with any media compatibilities either, it played every disc I put in just fine.

The drive also features Lightscribe, which is nice, but more of a novelty item that anything,  the time to takes to create the label is a bit much for me. I bought a 10 pack of Lightscribe DVDs and I most likely won’t be buying more after they are gone, my Sharpie works just fine fro labeling and it’s much faster…

Pros:
Fairly quiet
Fast
SATA connection
Lightscribe

Cons:
None really

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance