Samsung SE-406A Portable 6x Blu-ray Combo Drive

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 9.4.26.0 and InstantBurn 5:

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

The SE-406A uses P-CAV, or Partial CAV, when writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 8x. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Samsung's new drive starts writing at 3.46x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at about the 4.1GB minute mark.

The SE-406A also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. In both cases, the drive uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum writing speed.

The SE-406A performed as expected in our DVD writing tests. While not as fast as some of the internal DVD writers we've looked at recently, it turned in some respectable times with DVD±R and DVD±RW media.

To check the media compatibility of the SE-406A, 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? 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. 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 SE-406A'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.

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

To test the SE-406A's packet writing performance I used Drag-to-Disc 9.0. Verbatim 6x DVD-RW, Verbatim 8x DVD+RW and Maxell 5x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 9.4.26.0:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the SE-406A, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from Verbatim. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

The SE-406A performed as expected when writing to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media. In our tests, the drive took 25:52 to write 8001MB of data to DVD+R DL media and 26:27 to do the same with DVD-R DL discs. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The SE-406A's writing quality wasn't as good as I had expected with Verbatim's DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media. When tested with CD Speed, the error rates were a bit high throughout some sections of the discs.