Best SATA DVD burner

by **blake** on Fri Jun 22, 2007 4:08 am

I was hoping the ASUS DRW-1814BLT SATA 18x DVD±RW/RAM would fulfill my dreams, but after reading Ians review I am disappointed.

Who is the leader of the SATA DVD burning pact now? Most important to me are DVD read speed, and DVD+R and DVD+DL write speed, and media burn quality. Lightscribe is a plus.

Any comments regarding new Lite-On 20A1L? 20x DVD+-R, 8X DVD-dual layer, Lightscribe, SATA? No reviews yet!?

http://us.liteonit.com/us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=205&Itemid=67

by **SithTracy** on Fri Jun 22, 2007 6:54 am

Right now I have three SATA drives (primarily because my system board has a Jmicron controller).

Plextor PX-755SA - Good luck finding one.

Pioneer DVR-212D - It's OK, good ripper, average burner... no bitsetting or DVD-RAM write

LG GSA-H62N - I have no comments on this yet since I have yet to install it, perhaps this weekend. This uses the Renesas chip. It is said to have issues writing to Taiyo Yuden CD-R's (Who cares; I have a couple Plextors), but LG's do a great job with DVD media.

LightScribe? No thanks... If I can burn a disc in 5 minutes, I don't want to wait 30 for a label... Most of my discs are data backups. A Sharpie is fine.

Rarely do I rip backups of movies and usually, because I have kids, it is a Disney flick that I want to rid myself of the 40 minutes of crap they force you to watch before the movie... When the kids want to watch a movie, they want the damn movie, not frickin' advertisements.

by **LoneWolf** on Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:49 pm

Note also that the Pioneer DVR-212D doesn't support overburn either, which I consider to be its biggest weakness. The drives work well for me otherwise, but I'm hoping someone will come out with something that does what Pioneer does and more.

by **TCAS** on Fri Jul 06, 2007 12:19 am

Look like Samsung 18X SATA proof to be a good choice of SATA drive so far.

by **Wischmop** on Mon Jul 09, 2007 2:45 am

Still think the Asus 1814 is a better writer than 18x Samsung

by **LoneWolf** on Fri Jul 20, 2007 10:19 pm

I've just begun having major CD burning problems since I switched mainboards. The Pioneer DVR-212D's, in conjunction with my Intel BadAxe2 mainboard (using the Intel SATA controller in AHCI mode) are giving me tons of coasters in Nero 6.6. This is even at slow burn speeds (16x, 10x). I haven't had problems with DVD's so far, though I haven't burned as many, but I'm still unsure as to the cause. Nero's read buffer just instantly drops to zero at a random point during the burn, and then fails. I'm running 6.6.15, it's a brand-new install.

I may connect the drives to the secondary Marvell controller to see if this helps the problem, but right now, I don't have a clue as to why they read already recorded discs fine, and seem to do DVD's fine, but have CD problems. I'm using Verbatim silver-top inkjet-printable discs; I may need to find another brand of discs and see if that helps, though they've not been a problem before.

Barring that, I may need to return to an IDE DVD-ROM/IDE DVD-burner setup. We'll see what goes.

EDIT: Defragged the disk, hasn't solved the problem, and it happens on both burners, even after I've replaced their SATA cables. I'm loath to put Nero 7 on to see if it fixes things, since burning was fine with my old nForce4 mainboard (though I did more DVDs than CDs, *shrug*). I did attatch the burners to the Marvell controller, but that causes more issues, as the Marvell drivers treat the controller like a SCSI controller, so I went back to the Intel side.

by **Media2007** on Sat Jul 21, 2007 5:05 pm

So,what is actually the best SATA drive currently? #-o

I'am lost!

by **SithTracy** on Sat Jul 21, 2007 5:50 pm

There is no one best drive anymore... that is why I have several... Seems a waste, but I do use my Pioneer DVR-212D and LG GSA-H62N quite a bit... I'll admit, my first Pioneer DVR-212D was a lemon that I RMA'd. I am happy with it now, but others, like LoneWolf, have had there share of problems with the x12 series of Pioneer drives.

by **Media2007** on Sat Jul 21, 2007 9:48 pm

SithTracy wrote:There is no one best drive anymore... that is why I have several... Seems a waste, but I do use my Pioneer DVR-212D and LG GSA-H62N quite a bit... I'll admit, my first Pioneer DVR-212D was a lemon that I RMA'd. I am happy with it now, but others, like LoneWolf, have had there share of problems with the x12 series of Pioneer drives.

I think that I'am stay clear of the 212D then.I'am give these SATA's a try:

http://www.ncixus.com/products/24649/SH ... N/Samsung/

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=DRW-18SA-B

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=DRW-18SA-B

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=1624

by **Media2007** on Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:20 pm

Just a offer for two of these burners from my ex-wifes brother for $50.00

LG GSA-H10N DVD-RW

What do you think?And they're new in the box.

by **Scour** on Sun Jul 22, 2007 12:17 pm

I would prefer the newer models, H42, H44 and H62, imo it´s better than the old H10

by **Media2007** on Sun Jul 22, 2007 3:34 pm

Where are the reviews for the H62 all at?

by **Justin42** on Sun Jul 22, 2007 7:40 pm

I REALLY like the H10 series. I haven't had a ton of experience with newer LGs but my experience with the H10 has been nothing short of excellent. It pretty consisently gives burns as good or better than my Plex 760 on similar media. (something I can't say about the H22 which everyone seems to love)

Which are the "newer" Renesas-based LGs? Are there any lightscribe-enabled SATA Renesas burners?

by **SithTracy** on Sun Jul 22, 2007 9:33 pm

The H62L is SATA Renesas drive... Outstanding DVD burns... I had an H10N, which I crossflashed to H12N. It was great... as was the H22N (Panasonic)... But for DVD burning I think the H62N (I don't use LightScribe) is outstanding... Not so good with CD-R media though.... but we will probably get a new drive model before we get a firmware update.

by **Media2007** on Sun Jul 22, 2007 9:47 pm

LOL...........................You guys know what I've forgotten all about another important feature of my burner concern.
I need the burner that plays PC disc the best.
I'am a gamer.I need good performance there too!LOL................

by **Wesociety** on Mon Jul 23, 2007 2:53 pm

Any burner should read/play game CD-ROM's or DVD-ROM's just fine...

by **LoneWolf** on Mon Jul 23, 2007 3:29 pm

Update: It turns out my DVD burners were the problem. Went back to IDE and it solved the problems I've been having. Burns work great, and the problem I was having with incredibly long POST times for my mainboard went away too.

I get the distinct feeling (from reading some other forums) that Intel doesn't have it together completely with SATA optical support, at least if you want AHCI turned on in the controller BIOS. My Pioneer drives worked perfect in my nForce4 mainboard, prior to my switch.

If you want to go all SATA, I'd find out if P35 mainboards fix this problem, as I've heard of this issue with both 975X and i965 chipset boards. Alternatively, I'd look into an nVidia 650i or 680i mainboard, or stay with IDE drives for a little while longer.

EDIT: Intel has just informed me via e-mail that they have tested a large number of SATA drives with this setup, and experienced no problems, and they chalk it up to an incompatibility with my drives, essentially putting the blame on Pioneer. They suggest I buy other drives. Not exactly what I want (and I'm not sure I believe them), but I'm now looking for a non-Pioneer SATA drive for testing, which leads me to the following:

LG
Sony OptiArc
ASUS
LiteOn

I'd tend to pick the LG drives first (with OptiArc second and ASUS third), but I myself don't have the experience to say which is best, so I'll be relying on reports from others here on what they think as well. Thoughts, anyone?

by **Media2007** on Mon Jul 23, 2007 3:51 pm

I'am so glad my motherboard is a nforce4.Test out the Samsung 203B first.I've heard a few good things on it!

by **Scour** on Mon Jul 23, 2007 4:24 pm

The Intel-chipsets are (were?) the best for S-ATA-drives afaik, but not in the AHCI

The H62 seems to be a very good drive, it would be one of my first S-ATA-drives if I would buy one now

by **SithTracy** on Mon Jul 23, 2007 4:47 pm

I have a Plextor PX-755SA, LG GSA-H62N, and Pioneer DVR-212D on my Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi (P965) board using the Intel SATA in AHCI mode. No problems at all and I am quite pleased with them. Using the latest ASUS BIOS (1215) and latest AHCI drivers from Intel (June 5th-ish).

Also have a Pioneer DVR-212D on an Asus A8N-SLI (nForce4/AMD) and it is running great there too.

by **LoneWolf** on Mon Jul 23, 2007 7:47 pm

Media2007 wrote::D I'am so glad my motherboard is a nforce4.Test out the Samsung 203B first.I've heard a few good things on it!

Testing will involve buying. No easy way to just return what I get, especially without a restocking fee. For this reason, I need to talk with people who have had experience with the product. I like Samsung for a lot of things, but I'm not sure they'd be my first choice for optical drives.

I have attempted to put the ball back in Intel's court by requesting to know what makes/models of drives they did test, so that if they give me a straight answer (I doubt it), I can buy within their list, and if (or when, which I think is more likely in this case) the drives have the same problems, I can come back to them and show them that I truly think it is an implementation issue with their board.

by **Dartman** on Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:53 pm

My h62l works fine with my SIL3114 raid SATA port. I did have to replace the SATA cable recently as it stopped burning properly but the few test disks I burned since trying a different cable have been fine again.
The SATA ports hve been picky on some boxes so it pays to do some research and see what chipset/driver combos seem to work.
My h22n drive works better with DL, this ones is faster with regular media and the quality is usually fair to very good, better at a step lower burn speed for most good media, some burn great even at 18x and I get sub 5 minute burns as well sometimes.

by **Grain** on Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:59 pm

Aren't there known issues with Pioneer 112's &212's and CDR's? I must admit I have not burnt a single cdr in my 112D, but I know others who have had trouble, and I thought Pioneer was working on a firmware fix.

As far as SATA drives go, I quite like my Liteon 20A1S (no lightscribe) and have no issues with the ASUS 1814, other than DVDInfoPro can't scan it's +R burns :-?

, CDSpeed no problem.

by **LoneWolf** on Tue Jul 24, 2007 8:23 pm

Grain wrote:Aren't there known issues with Pioneer 112's &212's and CDR's? I must admit I have not burnt a single cdr in my 112D, but I know others who have had trouble, and I thought Pioneer was working on a firmware fix.

As far as SATA drives go, I quite like my Liteon 20A1S (no lightscribe) and have no issues with the ASUS 1814, other than DVDInfoPro can't scan it's +R burns , CDSpeed no problem.

I never had problems when my 212D's were connected to my nForce4 (Socket 939) chipset board, using the nVidia SATA controller. Burned CD's and DVD's just fine.

Intel's further response to my inquiry was this:

We regret to inform you that we do not have a list of tested optical drives for our Intel(R) Desktop Boards, but we have not received any information on issues with other brands of DVD/CD Readers or Writers.

Which smacks to me as a BS answer, considering their previous answer:

We have just performed various tests with different brands of optical drives and were not able to duplicate this booting problem with the Intel(R) Desktop Board D975XBX2.

We are led to believe that this is a compatibility problem with the specific brand of the drives you are using, so our next suggestion would be to test a different model of devices.

I expected better from Intel, and am disappointed by their response. While this is a decent mainboard, there are others out there as good, and it is unlikely I'll choose them again if this is what I can expect for support. Should I buy another brand of drives and have the same problem, the problem will still be mine to deal with. Perhaps I should check with ZipZoomFly on the return policy.

Best SATA DVD burner

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