In House Review - Sony DRU-840A 20x DVD±RW/RAM

[Ian]

CDRLabs has taken an in depth look at Sony's new 20x "Super Multi" drive, the DRU-840A. Sporting some pretty impressive specs, this Samsung based drive is capable of 20x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW and 12x DVD-RAM writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. More importantly, the DRU-840A is one of the first drives with the ability to write to both DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media at 12x.

In this review we'll take a look at some of the features found on the DRU-840A and see how it compares to some of the 20x DVD±RW drives from the competition. Does Sony's new drive have what it takes? You'll have to read the review to find out.



Sony DRU-840A 20x DVD±RW/RAM

If you have any comments or questions about this review or the Sony DRU-840A, please post them in the forum.

[Scour]

Nice review

It looks like a good writer, can it really be a samsung ?

Is the difference between 202H and 203-series only the +R DL speed?

Sonys design is truly not my taste, but it dont matter because this drive isn´t avaible in Germany

BTW, I Think here´s a typo: From the front, the DRU-840A looks very similar to Sony's 18x DVD writer, the DRU-840A

[Ian]

Samsung's 20x DVD writers have been pretty decent. However, this one needs a firmware update or two to bring it up to par with the SH-S203B.

I'm not really sure about the +R DL writing speeds. Sony claims that the DRU-840A writes at only 12x but if you look at Samsung's website, it says that the SH-S202H writes at 16x. It's possible that Sony removed that speed but I'd be very surprised if they did.

Typo has been fixed. Thanks for finding that.

[Scour]

TBH, I´m not very familar with Samsungs model-names

But why should Sony remove 16x, dunno

Is the 202 or 203 newer? I´m really confused, I read somewhere that a 202x is newer than 203x

[SithTracy]

202x is IDE/203x is SATA

I am very happy with my Samsung SH-S203B.

[jimc]

Installed my Sony DRU-840A and it worked for 2-days. Now it shuts down my PC when I try to burn CDR or DVD -R. Have tried several times. It's too new to be dirty. Plays and reads fine. Also, Lite-On LH-20A1L works fine. I'm running Win XP SP2, 4GB RAM, AMD 6400+ Dual Core. Any ideas?

[Ian]

Hi jimc. Welcome to CDRLabs.

What software are you using? The bundled copy of Nero? Does it crash or bluescreen or does it do a clean shutdown?

What happens if you burn a disc with CD Speed (www.cdspeed2000.com) or with ImgBurn (www.imgburn.com)? I'm curious to know if its the software or something with your computer.

[jimc]

I've tried burning music to CDR's with bundled copy of NERO and the built-in XP utility used by windows media player. Results are the same for both,... a clean shut down, no blue screen. I've also had the same issue burning DVDs with PRO Show Gold.

I tried swapping power supplies to a 650W unit but had the same issue. I have an SATA Lite-On LH-20A1L that works fine, though have had some burn issues due to media. I never get the shut down issue with the Lite-On unit only a error message stating disc could not be written to. I attribute that to bad discs because I can still burn with the Lite-On on same media type, but a different disc.

The Sony unit is EIDE and maybe 6-months old, but only about two succesful burns, very few hours of use. I've tried two differnt brands of media, FUJI and Verbatim.

Motherboard is MSI K9 Platinum. 4GB RAM, 2x320GB SATA HDs. Bios is latests, dirvers for all hardware are up to date.

Thanks for your help.

[Ian]

Have you tried a different IDE cable?

[Scour]

Maybe your windows is configured to make restart when a bluescreen happens. But dunno how this config is called in english Windows

[jimc]

Repalced IDE cable - problem solved. Should have figured this out myself. Thank you.

[Ian]

No prob. I'm glad things are working now.