In House Review - Samsung SH-S182D 18x DVD±RW/RAM

[Ian]

CDRLabs has taken an in depth look at Samsung's new "Super-Multi" drive, the SH-S182D. While affordably priced, the drive features some of the fastest reading and writing speeds available. The SH-S182D is capable of 18x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW and 8x DVD±R DL writing speeds and has a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. On top of that, its one of the first drives with the ability to read and write to DVD-RAM media at 12x.

In this review we'll take a look at some of the features found on the SH-S182D and see how it compares to some of the 16x and 18x DVD±RW drives from the competition. Does Samsung's new "Super-Multi" drive have what it takes? Is it the fastest DVD writer around? You'll have to read the review to find out.

[url=http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.php?reviewid=292]"
Samsung SH-S182D 18x DVD±RW/RAM[/url]

As usual, if you have any comments or questions about this review or the Samsung SH-S182D, please post them in the forum by clicking the link below.

[Dartman]

Your results pretty much agree with what I've noticed with my unit. My Dl burns were better but I have SB03 on mine and I think it helped quite a bit for some media.
Too bad it wont overspeed most media but most of what I find these days is 16x rated anyways. Hoping for more Fimware updates and maybe some creative FW hacking
Nice review, keep up the good work.

[Ian]

I used SB03 for all of the burns. Judging by the comments by people like Monsterman, the results vary a lot from drive to drive.

I've started testing the Sony DRU-830A which is based on the same hardware. Sony has done some tweaking of their own. They removed support for Mt. Rainier but added 48x CD-R read speeds. Good trade IMO. I haven't checked the writing quality yet though..

[Dartman]

Seems to be a typical mediatek based drive to me, at least it isn't as awfull as my Litey 811 drives were. It burns pretty well to media it likes, and downright awfull to the few I tried it doesn't. SB03 fixed support for the Sony made minus 16d1 media, it went from coaster to good for me.
I don't think I'll be trying anymore mediatek drives here anyways but it's a interesting little animal and they have been updating things, be cool to see if going to Sony Firmawre makes it even better...
Sorry I didn't notice you had 03 on it, kinda skimmed through and got the highlights to see how you liked it and whether yours was like mine

[MonsterMan]

Nice review, as always

For me there were big differences between the D and M models. I'm thinking about trying a D again, just for the heck of it. It's only $32 or so, so no big loss if it's not so great. But if newegg gets the 18x LG in...

Overall, most of the problems I've seen have been with Verbatium DVD-Rs - freezing on the D, horrible quality on the M.

Otherwise, a great drive...

[Scour]

Nice review

Samsung is the cheapest drives u can get in Germany. I don´t know if I want a Samsung-drive because bad experiences with Samsung-HDDs. And in german fora I read that some Samsung-drives have big vary in writing-quality

[Spazmogen]

I bought this drive on the strength of Ian's review.

Good job Ian.


btw: SB04 is the latest firmware for this drive, as I write this in Oct. 2006.

[exec]

Hello!

I just got a quick question about the SH-S182D. As I've seen in the test here (on the DAE section) that this drive has an offset of 0. Is that true? If yes, how this can be realized?

Just asking because I've never seen a drive with a read offset of 0.


Would be really nice if someone could confirm this.