Legit Reviews

I'm getting ready to build my new puter and one of the things I planned to do to eliminate cable clutter was go to a SATA DVD-R/W drive. Where do you guys stand on this? What brand do you like and why? Is one just as good as another?

This will be used mostly for ripping ISO's to my slave SATA HD which I'll mount with Demon Tools so that I don't have to find the dang DVD every time I play the game.

brand doesnt matter, just go with the cheapest one, as i bet about 95% are all made by the same OEM. i wouldnt bother paying extra for lightscribe though, not really worth it. i have lightscribe and have never used, mainly as the lightscribe media is outragously priced (relative to regular dvd/cd-r's )

Brand DOES matter
if u are burning DVD+DL / DVD+R for X360 or wii or Standalone DVD player u want DVDRW that support bitsitting, Pionner DVR-2XX does not allow u to modify booktype but it does automaticly change any DVD+R/DL to ROM for better compability, Samsung-Toshiba does not, NEC allows Bitsitting, ...

if u want rip XBOX360 selected Samsung Drive with Keron firmware will allow u to rip it, Selet LG drive allow u to read Wii

TSST (samsung-toshiba) are not the best when comes to DVD-R
there are only few company has Optiocal laser technology

Sony-NEC
Samsung Toshiba
Pioneer
Lite-on

so does it matter? yes heck alot!

Soo... ok. Which brands then?

For use as a reader, I like Lite-On. They're not known for being excellent burners, though. For burning, the NEC Optiarc AD-7200, Samsung SH-S203 and Pioneer DVR-115/215 series are relatively inexpensive and highly regarded.

I have a Samsung SH-S223F. Nero detects it as TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223F. Great DVD burner if you ask me. Been problem free so far, and it can actually burn DVDs at 16X speeds, unlike my old LG which was rated for 8X but usually supported only 4X burning speeds.

I have bought quite a few burners over the past couple years I have not had any problems with any of them. I think I have a couple Samsungs and LG in my current setups. People who usally have problems are the ones doing some shady stuff that require certain settings, not that I'm calling anyone out

I use Lite On's! I have 4 at the moment, one in my HTPC, 2 in my main system and one in my system connected to my stereo. The one in my stereo system is the first Lite On I bought it is a 4X version and it still works without any problems! The other 3 are LH-20A1 series, One is an "S" series the other 2 are "L" series. S stands for standard and L for Lightscribe! Which like most everyone has said is a waste of money, even if it was only $4 or $5!
The only "con" I can say would be noise when running at higher speeds.

Newegg has them for $29 Delivered!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827106057

Got it narrowed down to these three:

Samsung SH-S223Q for $26.99.

Lite-On LH-20A1S for $28.99.

or

NEC AD-7200S-0B for $21.99.


I've had good experience with NEC in the past. Never owed a drive from Samsung or Lite-On. Right now I'm leaning towards that NEC. Any final thoughts?

I'd personally go with the LiteOn but they all look like decent drives, go with the one you're comfortable with.

pioneer will be better than u go sony-nec

just incase he decided to backup x360/wii and DVD-rom for dvd player

just get pioneer .. less hassel, but if u want adjustable funtionality u go for nec-sony

AVOID SAMSUNG @ all cost. if u ever want ur disk to read on other companys DVD-rom

Well, the Samsung's out of the running as it's not a dual layer burner.

I read a bunch of the New Egg reviews of the Lite On. About 15 people report the drive just fails after 6months. Anyone here have a similar experience?

If you can only go with one, I'd go with the NEC for better burn quality. Albeit, the Lite-On is less picky about reading discs. My Lite-On drive (Sony DW-Q30A / Lite-On SHW-1635S) can read scratched discs that my other drives wouldn't. Burns a coaster every ten discs, though. That's why I usually have 2 optical drives installed on PC's - one reader and one writer. In fairness to the Lite-On, I was doing 10 consecutive burns, the only pause being changing discs.

The Samsung SH-S223Q is a dual layer burner. It's exactly the same as the SH-S223F except it has LightScribe. I don't think they make any non-dual layer burners anymore.

Comprehensive reviews:
Samsung SH-S223
Lite-On LH-20A1
Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7200

To be honest, the burning is of secondary concern to me as I have a Plextor in my server for that. I mostly will use this for ripping audio and ISO's. I like to keep the ISO of the game I'm playing on my slave SATA drive as it's quicker to mount an image than to find the disc.

In that case, the Lite-On or Samsung seems to be a better fit.

I've got a LiteOn and I've used it to rip my whole music collection to FLAC with SoundJuicer, it saved quite a few of my discs that wouldn't play in anything else...one disk was particularly bad, wouldn't go 20 sec without skipping and it ripped and played fine. Couldn't save everything though (I lost some Bob Seger )

Ok, down to two finalists.

The Lite On

or

The Pioneer


Alathald's comments about FLAC ripping are encouraging. I've done all of my ripping to this point with a PATA Plextor DVD-R and had excellent results. While I don't plan on doing TONS of ripping with Warmachine 1.5, I will likely do some and I'd hate to have a drive that drops to 2X when it's ripping audio. Wish there was a way to rip my SACD's.

If you want it mostly for reading rather than writing, I'd go with the Lite-On. There's also the bonus that it's ~25% cheaper than the Pioneer after shipping.