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Plextor PX-B320SA Combo Drive

Katherine Stevenson — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:00:46 -0600

Burn DVDs and watch Blu-ray movies

Blu-ray has yet to prove itself as a sensible storage medium—there are just too many less-costly solutions for backing up data. But just because you’re satisfied with a standard DVD drive for your burning chores, doesn’t mean you should be denied the enjoyment of watching Blu-ray movies on your PC—especially now that large 1920x1080 monitors are so affordable.

Enter Plextor’s PX-B320SA DVD burner/BD-ROM combo. We can’t say it offers the best of both worlds, but it strikes a nice balance. The drive’s DVD speeds aren’t up to the likes of, say, Samung’s SH-S223 performance DVD drive. For example, the Plextor is rated at 16x for DVD+R writes compared with the Samsung’s 22x. In our tests, that amounted to a 5:20 (min:sec) time to fill a single-layer disc vs. 4:46—not such a big deal. With double-layer media, the Plextor took 16:58 vs. the Samsung’s 13:16—yes, over time those minutes can add up.

Plextor adds a bit of splash to its PX-B320SA with a glossy front bezel.

Of course, Samsung’s drive won’t play your Blu-ray movies. In the realm of combo drives, Plextor’s PX-B320SA trumps LG’s GCC-H20L, the combo drive in our Lab test beds. Single-layer DVD+R write times for the two drives were virtually the same, but Plextor’s drive was more than 50 percent faster at writing to dual-layer discs, where the LG drive took 27:27. The Plextor drive also surpassed the LG drive in our DVD ripping test by nearly 50 percent, taking just 10:47 to copy a dual-layer movie disc to our hard drive, versus the LG’s 15:17.

Now, LG has since replaced the GCC-H20L with the GBC-H20L, which lacks the former’s support for also reading HD DVD discs (for obvious reasons) but otherwise boasts the same specs. We can’t say for certain that that drive performs the same as its GCC predecessor, but even so, we’re inclined to favor the Plextor PX-B320SA. After all, at $230, the LG GBC-H20L is a mere $20 less than our favorite full-fledged BD burner (Pioneer’s BDR-2203).

Even if you don’t have any interest in that functionality, it would be tough to turn down the added value for such a measly savings. At $180, Plextor’s drive at least saves you $70—money you could actually do something with.

Pioneer BDR-2203

Katherine Stevenson — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:30:00 -0500

8x Blu-ray burner redeems itself

In our July issue, we reviewed OWC’s Mercury Pro 8x Blu-ray External and found the drive’s performance puzzling. In short, the Mercury Pro’s BD-R write speeds belied its 8x rating, with the drive taking nearly an hour to fill a 25GB disc with data, compared with the 22-plus minutes it took LG’s 6x GBW-H20L. It got us wondering whether the issues were more the fault of OWC’s external enclosure or the Pioneer 8x Blu-ray drive at its heart.

This month we were able to answer that question as we tested Pioneer’s BDR-2203, the same drive used in the Mercury Pro. We immediately cut to the chase, testing the BDR-2203’s BD-R write performance. While the Mercury Pro was incompatible with the Nero DiscSpeed app we use for our optical drive tests—forcing us to use Nero 8’s Burn Express instead—the BDR-2203 had no such problems. Using DiscSpeed along with 4x Verbatim media, the drive wrote 22.5GB of data to a BD-R disc in 14:56 (min:sec)—a Lab record!—maintaining 8x speeds through much of the job. With rewriteable media, the drive’s performance wasn’t quite as impressive. The BDR-2203 held a steady 2x speed when filling a 25GB BD-RE disc, for a time of 45:35, much like the Mercury Pro—and 15 percent slower than the LG GBW-H20L’s BD-RE write time.

It doesn't look like much, but the BDR-2203 blows away the competition when writing to Blu-ray discs.

With standard DVD media, the BDR-2203’s performance was pretty much in line with the Mercury Pro’s—and that’s not a bad thing. While neither drive toppled the GBW-H20L in DVD+R speeds, all three were virtually tied: Pioneer’s internal drive wrote 4.38GB of data to a single-layer disc in 6:06 compared with the external drive’s time of 6:16 and the LG drive’s time of 5:43. On the other hand, both the Mercury Pro and the BDR-2203 surpassed the GBW-H20L in our DVD-ripping benchmark, with scores that were 50 percent faster than the LG drive’s.

In the end, not only did Pioneer’s BDR-2203 prove that it wasn’t to blame for the Mercury Pro’s BD-R issues, it succeeded in unseating LG’s GBW-H20L as our Blu-ray burner of choice. After all, who wouldn’t want BD-R write times that are 30 percent faster for a comparable price, along with solid performance in all other areas?

OWC Mercury Pro 8x Blu-ray External

Katherine Stevenson — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:37:18 -0500

Blu-ray has enough troubles without products like this

On the surface, OWC’s Mercury Pro Blu-ray external drive could seem appealing. The cabinet is attractive and sturdy; it offers FireWire 400, FireWire 800, USB 2.0, and eSATA interfaces—including all the requisite cables; and it holds a Pioneer BDR-203 drive, which is rated at 8x for BD-R writes—the highest rating available—and 16x for DVD+/-R. Yet, after using the device, we’re unimpressed.

We first tried to test the drive with the eSATA interface but it failed to work with any of our test beds, which use the nForce 680i SLI chipset. It was recognized by motherboards using Intel’s P45 and X58 chipsets as well as those boards’ auxiliary Marvell controllers. However, we benchmarked using USB 2.0 on our standard test bed for continuity.

We're not sure whether this product's flaws are the fault of the Mercury Pro enclosure or the Pioneer BDR-203 within it, or both.

Standard DVD testing went well, with the OWC Mercury Pro writing 4.38GB of data to a single-layer disc in 6:15 (min:sec)—a decent time, but not as good as LG’s GBW-H20L, which took 5:43. On a brighter note, the Mercury Pro was able to rip a dual-layer DVD movie to the hard drive in 10:49 (min:sec)—a time that rivals the best standard DVD drives and far outstrips the Blu-ray drives we’ve tested (the GBW-H20L took almost twice as long, for example).

But problems arose again when we moved to our Blu-ray tests. We simply could not write data to either BD or BD-RE media when using Nero DiscSpeed—the app we use for all our optical drive tests. Whether we used Verbatim, TDK, Memorex, or Panasonic media, we were met with an error message almost instantly. Tech support at OWC said they were able to use the app with no problem, but that wasn’t our experience. Since the version of the Mercury Pro we reviewed doesn’t come with software, we used the latest version of Nero 8 to test the drive’s Blu-ray skills. Like we said, the Pioneer drive inside the unit is rated for 8x BD-R writes—yet it took 52:17 (min:sec) to write 22.5GB of data to disc. Compare that with the 6x-rated LG GBW-H20L’s time of 22:16. A second test produced a similar result (52:26). Oddly, the drive performed more predictably when writing to BD-RE, taking 45:19 to fill a rewriteable disc, compared with the LG drive’s 39:35 (both drives are rated at 2x for BD-RE media).

We’re not sure what to make of this mish-mash of issues; we just know that $400 is a lot to spend on a really good drive—we wouldn’t even consider spending a fraction of that on this product.

Lite-On iHAS422

Katherine Stevenson — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:30:55 -0500

DVD drive déjà vu

Now that Lite-On is sharing the same drive manufacturing line as Plextor (not to mention Sony, HP, and Philips), you might wonder whether there is any difference between this 22x DVD burner and the Plextor PX-850SA 22x burner we reviewed in March. In fact, the two burners are virtually the same in terms of parts and mechanics, so differences really come down to the firmware each company uses and the tweaks and optimizations each makes to the final product.

The first thing we discovered is that Lite-On didn’t tweak this drive with an over-speed feature. So, like the Plextor PX-850SA, the burner stayed within the confines of the DVD+R media’s 16x rating, writing 4.38GB of data to a single-layer disc in 5:43 (min:sec). Samsung’s SH-S223, which can reach 20x-plus speeds when writing to 16x media, was almost a minute faster, at 4:46.

Behind the signature Lite-On faceplate is a drive that might as well be from Plextor.

There was also little difference between the two drives’ performance with double-layer media. The Lite-On’s 8x rating for DVD+/-R DL enabled the drive to write 7.96GB of data to a disc in 16:36 vs. the Plextor’s 16:33—both considerably slower than the 13:13 achieved by Samsung’s SH-S223, rated at 16x for DL media. But the Lite-On (like the Plextor before it) was superior to the SH-S223 at reading double-layer video discs, taking 10:16 to rip the contents of a movie DVD, compared with the Samsung’s 15:26.

By now it hardly seems necessary to say that the Lite-On’s performance writing data to DVD-RW media (14:54) and also reading the same disc (6:37) was on a par with the Plextor drive’s. It was quite clear from our testing that, though it may be possible for vendors to achieve noticeable differences in performance on identical hardware, that’s not the case here. The only things differentiating the Lite-On iHAS422 from the Plextor PX-850SA are the Lite-On’s less stylish faceplate, older software (Nero 7 Essentials vs. Roxio Creator 10 CE), and much lower price ($40 vs. $75).

LG GH22LS30

Katherine Stevenson — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:30:21 -0500

Another 22x DVD burner enters the fray

The GH22LS30 comes with Nero Express for recording discs and Cyberlink's Power-Producer and PowerDVD for disc authoring and playback chores.

If you read our disc-ripping challenge on page 62, then you already know that LG’s GH22LS30 22x SATA drive is a slowpoke at copying video discs. But if that’s not an activity that interests you, this drive offsets the shortcoming with other talents. For example, the GH22LS30 turned in the fastest time we’ve ever clocked at writing data to a single-layer DVD+R disc. Like Samsung’s SH-S223 (reviewed February), LG’s 22x burner isn’t daunted by 16x media; the drive peaked at a 20.1x speed when filling the disc and achieved an impressive write-speed average of 16.31x. Thus the GH22LS30 was able to write 4.38GB of data in 4:29 (min:sec) compared with the SH-S223’s time of 4:46. The GH22LS30 read the single-layer data disc in 4:58 to the SH-S223’s 4:55.

The two drives were close performers when reading and writing dual-layer discs, as well—when the content was data, that is. The GH22LS30 wrote 7.96GB of data to disc in 13:54 versus the SH-S223’s 13:13. And LG’s drive took 11:46 to read the data disc we created, while Samsung’s drive took 11:29. But as we mentioned earlier, the speed of the GH22LS30 ratchets way down when the drive is reading video files. Our new disc-ripping test involves copying the contents of a dual-layer movie disc to a hard drive (a read operation, as far as the optical drive is concerned). LG’s GH22LS30 took 20:24 to rip our test DVD, while Samsung’s SH-S223 finished in 15:26 in stock trim (and just 8:26 with a third-party firmware hack), and a host of other DVD drives took just a little over 10:00. (See page 62 for details). That kind of time can add up when you’re archiving a movie collection.

The two drives evened out again in our DVD+RW tests, with the GH22LS30 writing 4.38GB of data to a rewriteable disc in 14:55, a second faster than Samsung’s drive mustered.

Yes, the GH22LS30 is nearly equal to Samsung’s SH-S223 in many respects, but we’ll opt for the total package over a partial any day.

Plextor PX-850SA

Katherine Stevenson — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:31:50 -0500

Last month we reviewed our first 22x DVD burner, Samsung’s SH-S223; this month, Plextor presents us with a challenger in the form of the PX-850SA—a similarly spec’d drive that rises to the occasion in some respects, but falls short in others.

Like Samsung’s new burner, the PX-850SA boasts an industry-leading 22x speed rating for DVD+/-R media. It lacks, however, the Samsung’s over-speed feature, which helped that drive eke out a 4:46 (min:sec) Lab record when writing 4.38GB of data to a single-layer DVD+R disc. By comparison, the Plextor took 5:36, never breaching the 16x speed limit imposed by our Verbatim media.

The difference between the two drives’ performance with double-layer media was more expected. After all, Plextor’s PX-850SA is rated at just 8x when writing to DVD+/- DL, compared to the Samsung drive’s rating of 16x. In practical terms, this means Plextor’s drive took 16:33 to fill an 8GB disc versus the Samsung drive’s time of 13:13.

But the Plextor PX-850SA did have its triumphs. As a new addition to our optical drive benchmarks, we test a drive’s ability to rip the contents of a double-layer DVD to a hard drive. The PX-850SA had an average rip time of 10:43, while Samsung’s drive was about 50 percent slower, with an average rip time of 15:26. We must note that Samsung’s drive redeemed its ripping reputation—and then some—with a firmware hack, but Plextor’s PX-850SA gets props for being the faster drive out of the box and for being competitive at rips against a host of other drives.

The Plexy also gets props for its good looks. The drive’s stylish, shiny faceplate stands out against the generic facades of its peers. The PX-850SA further differentiates itself by coming bundled with Roxio Creator 10 CE as opposed to Nero’s package of DVD playing and burning apps, although the two suites are pretty comparable.

In the end, we’re talking about a solid-performing drive, but the PX-850SA still takes a backseat to Samsung’s SH-S223.

Samsung SH-S223

Katherine Stevenson — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:02:41 -0500

We’ll admit we’ve been perfectly content with Samsung’s SH-S203 DVD burner for more than a year. Once we were writing 4.38GB of data to a disc in five minutes flat, we were feeling pretty satisfied with the state of DVD technology. Nevertheless, we’re not about to turn our nose up at a performance increase. And that’s what Samsung’s latest DVD burner, the SH-S223, offers.

As you might have guessed from the name, the SH-S223 represents a jump from 20x to 22x DVD+/-R burn speeds. In our tests, this effectively shaved 12 seconds off the time it took to fill a single-layer DVD+R disc. The SH-S223 took 4:46 (min:sec) compared with the SH-S203’s flat 5:00. In both cases, we used 16x media, the fastest-rated media that’s readily available. And in both cases, the drives’ “over-speed” feature enabled them to burn data at higher than rated speeds. In the course of its write, the SH-S223 steadily climbed from a starting speed of 8.38x to 20.7x.

Besides the boost in DVD+/-R speeds, however, the SH-S223 has identical speed ratings to its predecessor for all other types of media. In our DVD+R DL write test, the SH-S223’s 16x rating for that media amounted to a write time of 13:13 using 8x media, a mere three seconds slower than the SH-S203. Again, the SH-S223’s over-speed feature kicked in, with a good portion of the burn occurring at 10x speed.

The SH-S223 is rated at 8x for DVD+RW and 6x for DVD-RW. We tested the drive with DVD-RW media rated at 4x. This time, rather than burning beyond the disc’s speed rating, the SH-S223 stuck to it, maintaining a 4x speed throughout and writing 4.38GB to the rewriteable disc in 14:56. This isn’t all that surprising, as drives typically perform much more conservatively with rewriteable media, given its greater propensity for write errors.

Like the SH-S203 before it, the SH-S223 connects to a PC using a SATA interface and comes bundled with a host of Nero apps.

While we see no need to graduate from a 20x DVD burner—particularly the SH-S203—to the SH-S223, this is the drive to get if you’re currently using anything less than an 18x model.

Sony BWU 300S Blu-Ray Burner

Katherine Stevenson — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:00:00 -0600

For more than a year, LG has been sitting pretty with the only 6x Blu-ray burner available for retail, but now that Sony’s BWU 300S offers 8x BD-R write speeds, LG’s supremacy has come to an end. Sort of.

The 300S is uncommonly fast—given the right circumstances. The drive managed to fill a 25GB BD-R disc with data in a blistering 13:56 (min:sec), compared with the LG GBW-H20L’s time of 22:16, but only when the drive was fed manufacturer-recommended Panasonic 6x media. And good luck finding that—our online search for the media was fruitless. When using more common 4x media, the 300S stuck closely to that speed rating, taking 22:56 to complete the same task.

This is an interesting point of comparison since LG’s drive is tuned to overburn 4x BD-R media at 6x speeds, which seems like a really nifty feat, until you see that its overall average speed remains 4x. More impressive is the fact that the LG drive can perform the exact same trick with 2x BD-R media. But we digress.

Like the rest of the competition, the 300S is rated at 2x for rewriteable BD media, which resulted in a 45:20 time to fill a 25GB BD-RE disc, almost six minutes slower than LG’s drive.

In our DVD+R burn tests, the two drives, which both feature 16x write ratings, ran neck and neck. The 300S took 5:49 to write 4.38GB of data to a single-layer disc, while the GBW-H20L took 5:43.

We’ll give Sony props for making BD-R writes truly speedy, but our enthusiasm is tempered by the unavailability of the Panasonic 6x media that makes those speeds possible. What’s more, even when using an equally rare 6x TDK disc, Sony’s drive wouldn’t overburn to its maximum 8x ability. It’s that particular. So in real-world terms we’re really looking at a drive that performs about the same, or marginally worse, than LG’s GBW-H20L, yet costs $100 more.

Even the bundled Men in Black BD disc doesn’t justify that premium. Heck, we’re not convinced that Blu-ray is worth even the lower price.