Samsung SH-S203N 20x DVD±RW/RAM

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.10.1.0 andDLA 5.20:

To test the DVD writing performance of Samsung's new drive I used Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD+R, Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD-R, Verbatim 8x DVD+RW and Verbatim 6x DVD-RW media. To get the writing times, a 4.38GB image was burned to our test discs using Nero.

When writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 20x, the SH-S203N uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Samsung's new drive starts writing at about 8.3x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The SH-S203N also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. While the drive uses CLV when writing to DVD-RW media, it uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum DVD+RW writing speed.

The SH-S203N performed very well in our DVD writing tests. The drive turned in some impressive times when writing to DVD±R and DVD±RW media, beating both the LH-20A3H and GSA-H55L by a small margin.

To check the media compatibility of the SH-S203N, I ran a few tests using some of the media available in my area. The media types, along with the average time it took the drive to write our 4.38GB image, are listed below.

So what about writing quality? Testing a drive's DVD writing quality isn't easy. Until now, there were very few options, unless you wanted to shell out thousands of dollars for a certified test machine. Thanks to KProbe, we can test a disc's PI (Parity Inner) and PIF (Parity Inner Fail) rates.For these tests I used a Lite-On SHM-165H6S (firmware HS0E) and read the discs at 4x with the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8 and 1 respectively. For comparison, I also tested the discs on a BenQ DW1640 (firmware BSLB). When combined with Nero CD Speed, the DW1640 is able to report PI Errors, PI Failures, Parity Outer Failures and even jitter levels. For this test, the discs are read at 8x with both the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8.

So what are "good" results supposed to look like? With KProbe, the PI errors should not exceed 280 and the number of PIF errors should stay below 4. When testing with CD Speed, the number of PI errors should stay below 280 as well. However, because it scans with an ECC sum of 8, a higher number of PIF errors is acceptable, as long as they do not exceed 32. Since POF errors are uncorrectable, we really don't want to see any of them at all.

I also put these discs through a "stress test" by reading them back at 16x with the DW1640. By reading these discs back at this speed, we can see if there are any readability issues caused by the number of errors or high levels of jitter.

The SH-S203N's writing quality was pretty good with most of the DVD+R media we tested. Aside from a few small spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits. The only real exception being RiDATA's 16x DVD+R media. When scanned with the BenQ DW1640, the PI rates were very high near the end.

Lastly, here are some results from our DVD-R test media. While the writing quality varied from one manufacturer to another, the results were pretty good for the most part.

To test the SH-S203N's packet writing performance I used DLA 5.20. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 12x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

Samsung's new drive performed very well in our packet writing tests. The SH-S203N turned in some very good times when reading and writing to DVD+RW, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM media.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.10.1.0:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the SH-S203N, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from MAM-A, Memorex and Verbatim. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

While a small number of manufacturers have begun to produce 16x DVD+R DL discs, they have not made their way to the North American market quiet yet. Thankfully, Traxdata was able to provide some of their media this review. These discs worked fine when creating a data disc with CD Speed. However, when burning our test data with Nero, it would hang at the layer change.

Due to the problems I had with Nero, Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL media was used in this test. When writing at 10x, the SH-S203N took a little more than 13 minutes to write 8001MB of data. If you do the math, this is a good minute faster than the GSA-H55L and more than three minutes faster than the DH-20A3H. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was pretty good with the DVD+R DL media from Verbatim and MAM-A. Aside from a few isolated spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits. Unfortunately, the results weren't as good with Memorex's 8x DVD+R DL media. When tested with KProbe and CD Speed, the error and jitter rates were very high at the layer change.

The SH-S203N also features 12x DVD-R DL writing speeds. Unfortunately, media capable of these speeds isn't available yet. Once discs rated at this speed start to ship, I'll go back and rerun these tests. Until then, here are some results with media that is currently available.

The SH-S203N performed very well when writing to DVD-R DL media. While not as fast as the GSA-H55L, the drive took only 13:33 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The SH-S203N yielded some mixed results with the DVD-R DL media from RiDATA and Verbatim. The error rates stayed within acceptable limits when tested with KProbe. However, when scanned by the DW1640, the PI rates were a little higher than we'd like to see.

Performance Revisited:

When it comes down to it, the performance of Samsung's new "Super-WriteMaster" drive was pretty mixed. The SH-S203N turned in some impressive times when writing to DVD±R, DVD±R DL and DVD-RAM media. However, there were a few cases where the writing quality could have been better. The SH-S203N was also fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD±R discs at 16x and other types of recordable media at 12x.

Unfortunately, the SH-S203N's performance wasn't as impressive when reading and writing to CD's. While the drive read pressed media at speeds near 48x, its CD-R and CD-RW read speeds were limited to only 40x. The SH-S203N also took longer than some of the other drives when writing CD's and had some trouble with Taiyo Yuden's CD-R media. With all things considered, the Samsung SH-S203N gets a 7 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.