LG GSA-H55L 20x "Super-Multi" 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.

LG's new "Super-Multi" drive gave us some mixed performance in our CD Winbench tests. While the GSA-H55L's overall score wasn't as high as some of the other drives, its transfer rates were fairly good.It started reading at 20.4x (3060 / 150) and reached a maximum speed of about 42.6x (6390 / 150) on the outside.

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.

	LG GSA-H55L	Lite-On LH-20A1H	Samsung SH-S182D	Plextor PX-760A
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	35.57x 20.47x 47.04x	36.09x 21.07x 47.72x	36.54x 20.89x 48.30x	36.76x 21.27x 48.63x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	103ms 104ms 174ms	96ms 111ms 167ms	105ms 114ms 178ms	96ms 113ms 172ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	0% 1% 2% 4%	1% 3% 6% 9%	0% 1% 3% 6%	0% 1% 2% 4%

When reading pressed CD's, the GSA-H55L is rated at 48x. Unfortunately, like the LH-20A1H, it came up short of this mark. In our tests, the drive started reading at 20.47x but reached a maximum transfer speed of only 47.04x. Nevertheless, the GSA-H55L's seek times were pretty good.

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 GSA-H55L was a little faster when reading CD-R media.While this wasn't enough to top the drives from Lite-On and Plextor, it had no problems reaching a maximum transfer speed of 48x in our tests. Looking at the other scores, you can see that the drive's seek times were again quite good.

LG's new DVD writer had no problems recognizing our 99 minute CompUSA media. The GSA-H55L read our test disc from start to finish, reaching a maximum transfer speed of 51.83x.

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.

Like the drives from Samsung and Plextor, the GSA-H55L's CD-RW read speeds are limited to only 40x. As you can see, the drive had no problems 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 while the LG GSA-H55L supports accurate stream, it does not cache audio data nor does it have the ability to retrieve C2 error information from the CD.

CD Speed	LG GSA-H55L	Lite-On LH-20A1H	Samsung SH-S182D	Plextor PX-760A
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	31.43x 18.12x 41.52x 10 Yes	36.45x 21.62x 48.15x 10 Yes	31.09x 17.78x 41.08x 10 Yes	31.35x 17.97x 41.48x 10 Yes

The GSA-H55L 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 41x.

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 GSA-H55L 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 GSA-H55L was a little slower when extracting audio from CD-R media, this didn't keep it from reaching amaximum DAE speed of 41x. So how did it do in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

LG's new DVD writer completed CD Speed's advanced DAE tests with an average score of 29.66x. 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 GSA-H55L was able to read the CD-Text, subchannel data and lead in but failed to read the lead out section of the CD.

To see how well LG'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 GSA-H55L handled scratched discs relatively well. By looking at the screenshot, you can see that the drive considered only 55% 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.

The GSA-H55L gave us some mixed results in this test. While the number of errors was very low, the scratches on the disc caused it to slow down considerably.