X-bit labs

Five DVD-ROM Drives Roundup

Category: Storage

by Andrey Kuznetcov

[ 09/03/2005 | 10:09 AM ]

If you have limited budget for your computer system and would like to save some by getting a regular DVD-ROM drive instead of a burner, then this roundup is for you. Five solutions from ASUS, Sony, Toshiba and Plextor under X-bit’s magnifying glass!

Table of contents:

• Testing Participants
  
• ASUS DVD-E616P3
  
• Plextor PX-130A
  
• Sony DDU1615
  
• Sony DDU1622
  
• Toshiba SD-M2012
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Performance
  
• Nero Info Tool and DVDINFOPro
  
• CD WinBench 99
  
• Nero CD-DVD Speed: Basic CD Tests
  
• Nero CD-DVD Speed: Basic DVD Tests
  
• Nero CD-DVD Speed: Advanced DAE Quality Test
  
• Nero CD-DVD Speed: Advanced DAE Error Correction Test
  
• Nero CD DAE
  
• Exact Audio Copy
  
• Conclusion
  

Does it make sense at all to write a review about DVD-ROM drives today when most users have long been purchasing devices capable of reading DVDs and burning CD media at least?

You may have also noticed that more and more software, application suites and games, are coming on DVD discs, thus making a DVD drive an indispensable component of any modern computer.

But DVD-recorders are still more expensive than ordinary DVD-ROM drives, and besides people who want to write to optical media, there still remain a category of users who want to save as much money as they can, building their computer system. It is for them that this review was written for.

Let’s take a closer look at our testing participants.

Testing Participants

ASUS DVD-E616P3

The first thing you notice about this drive is the shortened length of its case. It allows installing this drive into small-size system cases where a normal optical drive would hang over the mainboard’s expansion slots. Our sample of this model had a black front panel. The name of the manufacturer, the supported speed and type of the device, and a QuieTrack series logo are located on the tray. There are only an Eject button and a LED indicator on the front panel. At the rear panel, there are analog and digital audio outputs, power and interface connectors, a jumper with pins for setting the status of the drive on an IDE channel, and a jumper for factory testing.

The drive’s belonging to the QuieTrack series means that it supports DDSS II and AFFM technologies. The Double Dynamic Suspension System that stabilizes the optical head in both horizontal and vertical planes minimizes vibration and noise, controls the resonance frequency, and improves readability of discs. Airflow Field Modification technology normalizes the air pressure inside the case of the drive to ensure quite and stable operation.

The ASUS DVD-E616P3 can read DVD media at up to 16x speed and CD media at up to 48x speed. The average access time with both media types is 120 milliseconds. The cache buffer size is 512KB. The drive supports the ATAPI interface and can perform data transfers in UltraDMA/100 mode. The following media formats are supported: DVD-5, DVD-9, DVD-10, DVD-18, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD-Video, DVD+R/RW, Audio CD, CD-ROM/XA, Video CD, CD-I, Multi-session Photo CD, Karaoke CD, CD-Extra, and CD-Text. The dimensions of the device are 42.6x148.5x173mm; its weight is 0.8kg.

The average retail price of the drive is $27.