Samsung SH-S182D 18x DVD±RW/RAM

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.1.4 andDLA 4.95:

To test the DVD writing performance of Samsung's new drive I used Verbatim 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R, 8x DVD+RW and 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 18x, the SH-S182D uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Samsung's new drive starts writing at about 7.6x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The SH-S182D 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.

Samsung's new "Super-Multi" drive performed pretty well in our DVD writing tests. While not as fast as the drives from LG and Plextor when writing to DVD+RW and DVD-RW media, the SH-S182D turned in some of the fastest DVD+R and DVD-R writing times we've seen.

To check the media compatibility of the SH-S182D, 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.

The SH-S182D's media compatibility was a mixed bag. While the drive wrote to most of our test media at its rated speed, only three types worked at 18x.

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 SOHW-1673S (firmware JS07) 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 SH-S182D'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. The PI/PIF rates were fairly good for the most part. However, there is still room for improvement, especially with the discs from Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim. For whatever reason, we saw an excessive number of PI Failures when writing to the Taiyo Yuden media at 18x. The PI rate was also a bit higher than we're used to seeing on the Verbatim media. In both cases though, this had no effect on readability.

To test the SH-S182D's packet writing performance I used DLA 4.95. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 12x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

The SH-S182D's packet writing performance was pretty mixed. While it turned in some very good times with DVD-RAM media, it wasn't as fast as the other drives when reading and writing to DVD+RW and 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 SH-S182D, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from Verbatim and RiDATA. 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 8x was not an easy task. The only media we 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 6x and the other discs would not work at anything faster than 2.4x.

While no match for the drives from LG and Plextor, the SH-S182D took a respectable 18:34 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality wasn't as good as I had expected with Verbatim's DVD+R DL media. In both cases, the error rate started out fairly low but jumped up considerably on the second layer. Unfortunately, RiDATA's 8x DVD+R DL media didn't fair any better. While written at only 6x, the error rates were very high on the second layer. The writing quality was a bit better with RiDATA's 2.4x rated discs. However, there was still a sizable PI spike at the layer change.

The SH-S182D also features 8x DVD-R DL writing speeds. To test the drive's writing times, DVD-R DL media from Verbatim and RiDATA was used.

The SH-S182D performed very well when writing to DVD-R DL media. Thanks to its 8x writing speed, the drive only took 18:43 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

While the writing quality was fairly good with Verbatim's 4x DVD-R DL media, their new 8x rated discs yielded some mixed results. When scanned with the DW1640, the PI rate was very high on some sections of the disc. The worst results were with RiDATA's 4x DVD-R DL media. The PI rates were not only very high, there was a large PIF spike at the layer change which caused some major readability issues.

Performance Revisited:

When it comes down to it, the performance of Samsung's new "Super-Multi" drive was hit and miss. While the SH-S182D turned in some very impressive times with DVD±R and DVD-RAM media, it wasn't as fast as some of the other drives when writing to DVD±RW discs. Writing quality was also a big issue with some DVD±R DL media. On the other hand, the SH-S182D was fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it was able to read single layer data and video DVD's at 16x and DVD±R media at a respectable 12x.

The SH-S182D also did relatively well in our CD read tests. Along with some very good seek times, it had no problems reading all types of media at its rated speeds. When it came to writing CD's, Samsung's new drive gave us some mixed results. While the SH-S182D 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 SH-S182D gets a 7 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.