Samsung’s latest combo drive

This CD-RW cum DVD-ROM drive from Samsung can read/write CDs at 52X, and rewrite at 24X. Plus, it can read DVDs at 16X. For burst data transfer, it supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2 and ultra DMA mode 2. It has a built-in 8 MB buffer memory. The drive has a recoding capacity of 700/650 MB. We tested this drive on a P4 1.70 GHz machine with 256 MB of RAM and 15 GB 7200 RPM hard drive. The entire test was done on a 52X media. 

For burning 650 MB of data on a CD-R, it took 2 mins and 37 secs. To make a 74-min audio CD from WAV files, it took 2 mins and 36 secs. On the CD duplication front, the drive took 3 mins and 4 secs in audio CD duplication and 4 mins in Data CD duplication. On the CD-RW front, it took 8 mins and 44 secs to format a 700 MB media, which is more than a minute slower than the Sony combo drive reviewed in this issue. The average throughput for copying data on the CD-RW was about 1.4 MB/sec, which is again good. To test the DVD part of the drive, we used the Nero DVD speed test. It showed a maximum reading speed of 12X, which is slightly lower than its rated 16X. 

S N   A   P   S   H O   T Price : Rs. 5,000 Key specs : 52X/24X/52X and16X DVD read, good performance Contact : Samsung, Delhi. Tel : 51311234  E-mail : marketing@samsungindia.com

Overall, the drive scored well in every area, and is a good buy. 

Sanjay Majumder