Samsung SH-S203B 20x DVD±RW/RAM

While CPU, memory, OS and other variables don't often make a huge difference, there are some nonetheless. We have a computer that is used only for testing hardware. We do this so all tests can be compared reliably.

Test System:

For DVD writers the performance tests are broken down into four sections: CD read, CD write, DVD read and DVD write tests. Each benchmark test has been run three times. The score given is an average of the three. DMA has been enabled in device manager for all IDE devices supporting it.

CD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the CD-ROM benchmarks, CD WinBench 99 v3.0 and CD Speed v4.7.5 are used to test read speeds, seek times and CPU usage. For DAE testing both CD Speed and CD DAE are used. CD Speed is used to give an overall DAE speed rating and CD DAE is used to give the track by track extraction speeds and to check the extracted tracks for errors the drive may have created.

CD Write Tests: To test the write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 700MB to our test media. Times are recorded. To test rewrite scores, Nero is used again to time how long it takes to write 400MB of random files and directories. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

DVD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the DVD benchmarks CD Speed v4.7.5 is used to test read speeds, seek times, and CPU usage.

DVD Write Tests: To test the DVD write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 4GB to our test media. Times are recorded. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

CD Winbench 99 Scores:

The CD Winbench test is as close as we can get to testing every day usage. It fires off eight different applications using scripts. This tries to mimic the activities of a person loading these programs onto their own computer.

Samsung's new DVD writer performed pretty well in our CD Winbench tests. In the transfer rate tests, the SH-S203B started reading at 20.5x (3070 / 150) on the inside and reached a maximum speed of about 43x (6450 / 150) on the outside. The drive's access time and overall score were also quite good. However, its CPU utilization was a little higher than I would have liked.

CD Speed v4.7.5 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used a pressed CD containing one Mode 1 data track. The disc is 74:38 in size and is full of data and directories.

	Samsung SH-S203B	Lite-On LH-20A1L	LG GSA-H55L	Samsung SH-S182D
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	35.97x 20.88x 47.57x	36.07x 21.40x 47.68x	35.57x 20.47x 47.04x	36.54x 20.89x 48.30x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	98ms 104ms 174ms	97ms 112ms 169ms	103ms 104ms 174ms	105ms 114ms 178ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	0% 1% 2% 4%	1% 3% 5% 8%	0% 1% 2% 4%	0% 1% 3% 6%

The SH-S203B didn't perform as well as I had expected when reading pressed CD's. While rated at 48x, Samsung's new drive came up a little short of this number in our tests.

CD Speed v4.7.5 - CD-R Media:

For this test I made a copy of our pressed test CD. I used 12x rated Memorex Gold 74 minute media for the tests.

The SH-S203B wasn't nearly as fast when reading CD-R media. Like the SH-S182D, it reached a maximum transfer speed of only 41x.

Samsung's new DVD writer had no problems recognizing our 99 minute CompUSA media. The SH-S203B read our test disc from start to finish, reaching a maximum transfer speed of 44.67x.

CD Speed v4.7.5 - CD-RW Media:

For this test I made a copy of a pressed test CD. I used some PNY 80 minute CD-RW media for the tests.

Samsung's new drive also reads CD-RW media at 40x. As you can see, the SH-S203B had no problem reaching this speed in our tests.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.7.5 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used Pure Funk. The CD is almost exactly 74 minutes. This helps to squeeze the maximum performance out of the CD.

Exact Audio Copy can tell us a lot about a drive's capabilities. You can see from the screen shot that the Samsung SH-S203B supports accurate stream, caches audio data and has the ability to retrieve C2 error information from audio CD's.

CD Speed	Samsung SH-S203B	Lite-On LH-20A1L	LG GSA-H55L	Samsung SH-S182D
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	30.94x 17.85x 40.88x 10 Yes	36.41x 21.27x 48.12x 10 Yes	31.43x 18.12x 41.52x 10 Yes	31.09x 17.78x 41.08x 10 Yes

The SH-S203B did fairly well in our DAE tests. While not nearly as fast as the drive from Lite-On, it hadno problems ripping pressed audio CD's at 40x.

To get a better look at the quality of the extracted audio we use CD DAE. CD DAE is actually designed to be an audio ripping program. It converts the CD-DA on the CD to .wav files. We use it in our testing because it can also be used as a quick and easy way to test the quality. Where CD Speed tests the DAE as one large session, CD DAE extracts each CD track individually. It actually extracts each track twice and then compares them to check for any errors. Every error a drive creates could be a hiss or pop you would hear later in the audio tracks.

While the SH-S203B started out a little faster when extracting our test CD with CD DAE, its average and maximum speeds were slower than what we saw with CD Speed.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.7.5 - CD-R Media:

For this test I used a copy of the Pure Funk CD. It's burned onto the same Memorex Gold 74 minute media I used in the CD Speed tests.

While the SH-S203B was a little slower when extracting audio from CD-R media, this didn't keep it from reaching amaximum DAE speed of 40x in our tests. So how did it do in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

Samsung's new DVD writer completed CD Speed's advanced DAE tests with an average score of 29.14x. The drive had no problems passing all of the on-the-fly tests and did not create any errors. If you look at the advanced features, you can see that the SH-S203B was able to read the CD-Text and subchannel data but failed to read the lead in and lead out sections of the CD.

To see how well Samsung's DVD writer can read scratched and dirty discs, I used CD Speed's ScanDisc utility to see how many sectors were damaged or unreadable. This is a very rough, but good way to test the drive's error correcting abilities.

CD Speed - ScanDisc

The SH-S203B handled scratched discs relatively well. By looking at the screenshot, you can see that the drive considered only 58.7% of the CD to be "damaged". More importantly, none of the sectors on the disc were unreadable.

You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.

Here too, the SH-S203B did pretty well. The scratches on the disc had little effect on the drive's speed and the number of errors remained relatively low.