Drives > DVD-ROM Drives > IDE

Advantages: Well known brand.
Disadvantages: none

To begin with, it loks nice. The simple front design does away with exterior volume dials and headphone jacks, all there is, is one open/close button. It was incredibly easy to install. All i had to do was slot it in (making sure my jumper settings were correct for my set up) and install the cables into it. I used NERO to find out the results. To test the DVD i used CSI:Miami the game. Eject time: 1.62 seconds Close time: 1.56 seconds Spin-up ...
...DVD is 16x). Spin-down time (Time taken to reach standard revoloution rate after reaching fastest.) Spin -up time: 5.14 seconds Spin-Down time: 3.81 seconds Time taken for disc recognition: 10.05 seconds I would recommend this drive becasue it is simply fit and forget. I have given the instruction manual a totally unhelpful rating becasue it didn't come with one. With the drive you also get power DVD 5 ... Read review

Advantages: Good quality; quiet operation; very affordable
Disadvantages: Rather high CPU usage

...the drive's cache size? The Samsung has only 256kB of cache (as opposed to the Plextor's 2MB). DAE quality was rated "10" (perfect) with the "Accurate Stream" feature present. CPU usage with CD-R dics was fairly good for a quality drive: 0% at 1x, 1% at 2x, 2% at 4x and 4% at 8x. CPU usage reading DVDs seemed staggeringly high at first glance: 6 % at 1x, 19 % at 2X, 47 % at 4X and 77 % at 8x reading a pressed DVD-ROM, and even higher with a burned ...
...% at 4x and "n/a" (out of range? ;-)) at 8X. Then I measured CPU usage with the (generally acclaimed) Plextor drive: it was just as high. Not being an expert in this field I can only speculate that during normal operation CPU usage won't be a problem; DVD film playback occurs at 1x; audio file playback off DVDs also doesn't require higher read speeds. Aside from file copying, the only circumstance I can think of where thed drive would have to provide ... Read review

Advantages: Very reliable, quick and easy to use
Disadvantages: None other than it does not read RAM discs

...or write to these, which is the only downside, but for me is not a problem as i dont use RAM discs. NEC is a brand you can trust. Any questions or if i have missed a point you would like cleared, please leave a comment in my guestbook. ... Read review

Advantages: Read/Write/Erase-CD-R/CD-RW/DVD+R/DVD+RW
Disadvantages: None

The LG GSA 4167B Super-Multi is very good because it can read,write and erase data on all media formats.I own one and I don't have problems with it.Mine is three years old and but still works very good.The first years after I bought it the CD's/DVD's inserted in the LG drive were written and read with no scratch on the CD's/DVD's.Now,when it's three years old it leaves a few scratches in comparison to other products.It's easy to install and the product ... Read review