LG GSA-H55L 20x "Super-Multi" DVD±RW/RAM

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.1.4 and DLA 5.20:

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

When writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 20x, the GSA-H55L uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that LG's new drive starts writing at about 8.4x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The GSA-H55L also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. While the drive uses CLV when writing to DVD-RW media, it uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum DVD+RW writing speed.

LG's new "Super-Multi" drive performed very well in our DVD writing tests. While not as fast as the PX-760A when writing to DVD+RW and DVD-RW discs, the GSA-H55L turned in some very impressive times with DVD+R and DVD-R media.

To check the media compatibility of the GSA-H55L, 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? Testing a drive's DVD writing quality isn't easy. Until now, there were very few options, unless you wanted to shell out thousands of dollars for a certified test machine. 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 (firmware BSLB). 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 GSA-H55L's writing quality was pretty good with most of the DVD+R media we tested. Aside from a few isolated spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits. The only real exception was RiDATA's 16x DVD+R media. While written at only 12x, the PI rate was fairly high throughout the entire disc.

Lastly, here are some results from our DVD-R test media. On discs written at 18x or less, the writing quality was pretty good. Unfortunately, when writing at 20x, the PI/PIF rates were very high near the end of the disc. As you can see, this caused some readability problems.

To test the GSA-H55L's packet writing performance I used DLA 5.20. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 12x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

The GSA-H55L turned in some impressive times when reading and writing to DVD-RW and DVD-RAM media. Unfortunately, due to its Z-CLV writing method, it wasn't as fast asthe PX-760A when writing to DVD+RW discs.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.1.4:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the GSA-H55L, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from Verbatim, RiDATA and Memorex. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

Finding DVD+R DL media that would work at 10x was not an easy task. The only media I found that would work at this speed were Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL discs. With RiDATA's 8x DVD+R DL media, the writing speed was limited to 8x and the other discs would not work at anything faster than 4x.

The GSA-H55L had no problems taking the top spot in this test. Thanks to its 10x DVD+R DL writing speed, the drive took a little more than 14 minutes to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was pretty good with the DVD+R DL media from Verbatim and RiDATA. Aside from a few isolated spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Memorex's 2.4x DVD+R DL media. When tested with KProbe and CD Speed, the error rates were fairly high throughout the entire disc. Oddly enough, this didn't have any effect on readability.

The GSA-H55L also features 10x DVD-R DL writing speeds. To test the drive's writing times, DVD-R DL media from Verbatim and RiDATA was used.

Surprisingly, the GSA-H55L was even faster when writing to DVD-R DL media. This time around, it took the drive only 13:26 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The GSA-H55L's writing quality was again pretty good. The error rates stayed within acceptable limits and, aside from the dip when reading back Verbatim's 4x DVD-R DL media, there weren't any readability problems.

Performance Revisited:

While LG's new "Super-Multi" drive has a few rough spots, it performed pretty well throughout most of our tests. The GSA-H55L flew through our DVD writing tests, turning in some impressive times with DVD±R, DVD±R DL and DVD-RAM media. Unfortunately, there were a few cases where the writing quality could have been better. Reading DVD's wasn't a problem for the GSA-H55L either. The drive was able to read single layer data DVD's and DVD±R media at 16x, but slowed to only 8x when reading DVD videos.

The GSA-H55L also did relatively well in our CD read tests. The drive read pressed and CD-R discs at speeds as high as 48x and had some fairly good seek times. When it came to writing CD's, the GSA-H55L gave us some mixed results. While the drive turned in some impressive times when writing to CD-R media, its Z-CLV writing method put it at a slight disadvantage in our rewriting tests. With all things considered, the LG GSA-H55L gets a 7 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.