Target PC :: Samsung's Disk Drives

Unlike a few years ago, when the optical disk drives market was owned by a handful of companies (unless you wanted cheapness); today’s market has diversified and offers a variety of quality products.

To confirm that statement, we recently received two optical devices from Samsung: the 24x/10x/40x SW-224 CD-RW Drive, and the 16x/48x SD-616 DVD Drive.

Therefore, this will be the first segment of a two part review on the products mentioned above.

Part 1: SW-224

After an IDE hookup, I inserted a CD in the SW-224; I was delighted to only hear a slight noise coming from it. In fact, the 24x/10x/40x CD-RW Drive possesses a built-in Acoustic-noise Reduction System that is quite effective. It was working so well that, at one point, I even forgot that there was a CD in the drive.

Samsung is another manufacturer that opts for a one button interface. .

I guess that’s it. Now, let’s go on to the much expected benchmarks.

The speed was just impressive: a 22.56x average out of a possible 24x! Its performance was unstable at first, but it rapidly picked up its top speed and just stayed there. Consequently, I have nothing to reproach it in this test.

Well, the speed was pretty stable throughout the length of the test . The seek times aren’t optimal, but the CPU usage results are quite good. At least, when it comes to writing, this CD-RW is great; I tried to write a few CDs with it and the writing times were quite impressive! It took me 1.45 minutes to write an entire 650mb CD and 3.02 minutes for an 800mb CD. Also, has shown in the previous test, its write transfer is excellent. Therefore, when it its element, this drive performs rather well.

Part 2: SD-616

Last, but not the least, I will present you the SD-616. This is a 16x/48x DVD drive. No need for an introduction or first impressions, so let’s go see the benchmarks.

Tests

First, let’s start of with the CD data reading test results.

On a note, the seek times are good and the CPU usage outcomes are great.

Now, on to the DVD data results:

The results are great! With a great 15.79x speed average, the SD-616 is looking pretty sharp. The Seek times are good and the CPU usage results are, as always, right on target. For those reasons, I have to admit that this DVD drive is pretty great when it comes to actual DVDs.

Now, it’s time to show you the audio extracting results:

The speed is not the best, but it could be worse. Everything was pretty stable, expect for this mysterious drop a bit more than halfway through the test. The seek times are better than those from the SW-224 and the CPU usage results are more than acceptable.

Still, when it all comes down to DVD, the SD-616 met my expectations; it scored a 15.79x average out of a possible 16x, its seek times were acceptable, and its CPU usage results were excellent. It might not be the greatest when it comes down to reading CDs, but when it’s time to read DVDs, this device definitely has what it takes to get the job done.

Summary

For the results of the Data extraction tests, the devices we're on the line of the speed segment. On a better note, they had good results in the CPU usage test. As for their seek times, they weren’t great or bad: just kind of average.

Fortunately, when it came time for the SW-224 and the SD-616 to prove themselves in there respective fields, they were both almost flawless and offered tremendous performances.

Therefore I recommend you the SW-224 and the SD-616 as value products. They might not offer you much in the CD data and audio extraction department, but they are magnificent in there individual areas which are CD recording and all around DVD usage.

SW-224
SD-616

David Dorgerville
02.03.24