Conclusion

The reviewed drives achieved good results in my tests, but require a serious overhaul as concerns processing DVD-R media. The strong and weak points of each model are listed below.

Gigabyte GO-0804A

Highs:

• Excellent burn quality with DVD media, save for DVD-R format;
• Fast error correction mechanism;
• Can read data from the housekeeping areas of the disc;
• Small offset;
• High audio grabbing speed.

Lows:

• Average CD burn quality, especially at the lower speeds;
• Low-quality reading of damaged Audio CDs;
• Poor burning of DVD-R media.

Gigabyte GO-0404A

Highs:

• Good CD-R burn quality;
• Excellent DVD burn quality, save for the DVD-R format;
• 100% return of C2 errors;
• Excellently reads damaged Audio CDs.

Lows:

• Cannot burn DVD-R discs;
• Cannot read the Lead-In and Lead-Out areas;
• Errors when copying audio data “on the fly”.