SPCR

Good review~

I was looking for a good external slot-loading DVD burner and found this model, but couldn't find a single (reliable) online/offline store that has one in stock (I'm in US).
Don't understand why slot-loading is so unpopular.
I guess recent netbook boom brought this one back to market.
Now newegg has them in stock again.

You know what else this would be good for? Eliminating 5.25" bay DVD drives - I have a nomal DVD drive in my Antec 300, and am now considering how I could fit a Lian Li 3 x 5.25 HDD adapter in my case - but the DVD drive takes up one bay leaving only two 5.25 bays open.

Given I only use the drive for OS installation, it's kinda moot having it now - one of these would be ideal to use in the systems when and where you need to. If you could justify buying one because of a netbook or Mac Air, and eliminating a drive in your next build, it would be quite cost effective.

seems a tad (!) overpriced for what it is - you can get similar products for about half the MSRP of this Samsung, albeit without the shiny white paint job. when a netbook costs ~$400, to spend another $100 on this, if you really need an optical drive that often, why not just spend the $500 on a full-sized notebook? ok, with the netbook + slim DVD-RW portability is a lot better, but instead why not just bring a portable hard drive? who really needs to rip/burn things on the move? most people have an optical drive/burner on their home PC, which can do all the ripping and burning, then move whatever stuff you want to bring with you to a USB 2.5" HDD, it would be better for your battery life I'm sure. just having a hard time imagining a usage situation where this would be an optimal/most cost-effective solution. ok, the geek/wow factor is pretty cool, but apart from that...

jaganath wrote:seems a tad (!) overpriced for what it is - you can get similar products for about half the MSRP of this Samsung, albeit without the shiny white paint job.

It sells for $99 at newegg. A couple others at similar and even higher prices. The cheapest alternative is $65 -- a sony -- but it's not a slot loader, just your typical pop-out notebook style optical drive mechanism.

As for the rest of your comments, I agree, the product fits a small niche.... except for the idea of spending more for a bigger laptop w/ an optical drive. The whole point of the netbooks is tiny mobility. To get an optical drive in a similar size notebook means going to business class machines -- 3-4 times the $.

hmm, be 'nicer' if it had bluetooth an a card reader for use with a pda.(and also worth $150)

not bad for 99$ tho. and a great option for a remote located HTPC.

Is the Asus a quiet netbook? I've been thinking of picking one up. The Dell has no fans and moving parts with the SSD but is a bit expensive. I've heard that the Aspire One can be loud.

I have had something like this for a while now, just a cheap enclosure and Pioneer tray loading drive.

The slot loading seems like a good idea. Trays can be fiddly to eject I find, and now they have solved the problem of discs getting stuck in the machine (hi no-eject-button-oh-no-my-Mac-crashed-halp-can't-get-cd-back-Apple) this seems ideal, if overpriced.

Word of warning about these USB powered optical drives: even though your laptop may have two "powered" USB ports, it doesn't mean that the two ports are running off of independent rails. In other words, the two ports may have only 2.5w available between them.

Now this may not be such a problem with this particular drive, since it seems to be able to operate from only the power offered by a single USB port (Though two are recommended? I'm not sure what that implies, exactly.). Most of these USB powered drives, however, require two powered USB ports and won't work with all laptops. And given that this one doesn't come with any sort of AC adapter as a failsafe, you might want to be a little careful.

This drive would make a lot more sense, even at a much higher price, if it handled Blu-ray. That's a capacity many computers presently lack, and this would be an elegant patch for those machines. As it is, it's pretty, it's nifty, and it's got no use that I can imagine.

I do have to ask: Would this really be all that useful in the SPCR lab? USB, self contained make sense. But, I'd hate to have to wait around for this thing to install an OS.

hey this looks like a great product. if the burn quality is acceptable, i may get one to replace my big ol 5.25" PATA burner
has any cd site reviewed this drive? you often link to storage review or some other guys for HD benchmarks, so a link to some website eg cdfreaks or cdrinfo or the like for burn quality tests would have been appreciated.. just searching myself now..

While the slot-loading drive is unique, my Lacie usb-powered optical drive(notebook style) works fine, and was only $75. Do I really need to spend $25 more for 5 seconds of convenience? It's also a TSST drive, so not like there's much difference. I like the idea, but would have only been an alternative in my eyes if it were a bit cheaper.

Price is always a factor, but I think slot loaders have to be considered less likely to be damaged than pop-out slim optical drives. That mechanism always struck me as flimsy and easy to break... not that I've ever broken one, to be honest.

guises wrote:since it seems to be able to operate from only the power offered by a single USB port (Though two are recommended? I'm not sure what that implies, exactly.).

It's not clear in the review whether the testing was done with only a single USB port connected.
Mike C, would you please clarify this?

wim wrote:has any cd site reviewed this drive?

CDFreaks reviewed the SE-T084L model. I believe it's the same model. Here's link to the review:
http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/Samsung ... er-Review/

Both USB plugs need to be used, and they were.

The Review wrote:except for playing audio CDs on the Asus Eee PC, when the spin speed dropped for some reason

For some reason? How about for the obvious reason that an audio CD only needs to be played at 1X speed?

jessekopelman wrote:For some reason? How about for the obvious reason that an audio CD only needs to be played at 1X speed?

That's no assurance of 1x speed. When connected to the desktop PC, it runs at much higher speed.

It is a problem not just with CDs but also DVDs -- players and writers routinely run at higher speed than necessary for playback. It's why the Nero Drive Speed became siuch a popular tool around here for a while. It doesn't work in Vista tho. There's a line command which can set tghe read speed lower... can't recall the details.

MikeC wrote:Both USB plugs need to be used, and they were.

Ah. My mistake then, I was reading into the "recommended" in this line:

Hooked up to an Asus Eee PC 1000H netbook. Note second USB plug; it's recommended to be used, presumably to accommodate power peaks and reduce the chance of overloading one USB port.

In that case, let me reiterate caution in buying this - I can verify from experience that one of these double-plug drives won't work with a Toshiba M200, and probably numerous other laptops.

These drives will definitely work with any non-nVidia chipset laptop with more than two USB ports. Other than that, you're on your own (most chipsets have two ports per root hub, which is where the power comes from, and nVidia ones are broken by design and often place up to ten ports on the one root hub).

MikeC wrote:Both USB plugs need to be used, and they were.

Interesting, mine runs off just one port on all systems I have tried (two desktops, a mini PC and a Thinkpad x32), even when burning.

MoJo wrote:

MikeC wrote:Both USB plugs need to be used, and they were.

Interesting, mine runs off just one port on all systems I have tried (two desktops, a mini PC and a Thinkpad x32), even when burning.

Like I've mentioned, I have a TSST drive by Lacie. It will run off of 1 USB on my desktop, but not from a Dell Inspiron. Also, with a scratched disc, it would fail to load the disc, and lock up the system if it was only powered by a single USB. I had to plug in two to get it to read the disc.

My Abit IP35-E has a lot of trouble with a 2 USB plug 2.5" external drive plugged in. It no longer boots with the drive plugged in. I won't be buying another drive with this setup.

It would make sense to stick a small battery pack in these USB devices. I was going to actually wire up a 4 AA cell NiMH battery pack and attach it to my drive, but I ended up not using the drive enough to make the effort.

I have a $16 5.25" IDE/USB enclosure coming from Newegg to put old DVD burner in for occasional use with my new 1000HA. I don't need to use optical disks away from home, and I don't use them often at home either.

INOi had a external enclosure with a USB hub, card reader, internal 3.5" bay , and external 5.35" bay called the Media Tank DW567. If it was cheaper it would make sense for use with these Netbooks.

QuietOC wrote:My Abit IP35-E has a lot of trouble with a 2 USB plug 2.5" external drive plugged in. It no longer boots with the drive plugged in. I won't be buying another drive with this setup.

One related issue I noticed with mine is that it will not boot unless started from cold. The PC can see the drive and access it normally, it just will not actually boot off a disc in it unless it's only just been plugged in. It's a minor annoyance with an otherwise excellent drive.

My guess is that the Pioneer drive I have is low power enough to run off one USB port. One of the machines I tried had problems running a USB 2.5" HDD off a single port, but worked fine with the DVD-RW.

MikeC wrote:

jessekopelman wrote:For some reason? How about for the obvious reason that an audio CD only needs to be played at 1X speed?

That's no assurance of 1x speed. When connected to the desktop PC, it runs at much higher speed.

It is a problem not just with CDs but also DVDs -- players and writers routinely run at higher speed than necessary for playback. It's why the Nero Drive Speed became siuch a popular tool around here for a while. It doesn't work in Vista tho. There's a line command which can set tghe read speed lower... can't recall the details.

I'm not saying this behavior is usual, just that it's easily explained. When you write "for some reason," you imply the reason is unknown. In this case the reason is know -- it slows down because there is no need for it to spin so fast.

jessekopelman --

It's logical for the drive to run at 1x speed playing CDs, and that's a statement I agree with. BUT almost invariably, that's not normal of ODDs in PCs. ODDs go at much higher than 1x speed doing this -- I wrote "for some reason" because when connected to the desktop PC, it runs at many times higher than 1x speed.

If it played audio CDs at 1x speed on both PCs, that would require less explanation. Then I would have written: "Unlike most ODDs, this one thankfully plays audio CDs at the 1x speed at which they should be played."

would it be impossible to run this drive from the usb ports on the side of my monitor? (dell 3008wfp)
there are 2 usb ports there but it must be a hub because there is only one cable which connects those two ports to a single usb on the motherboard. it is one of the chunky usb cables which extends up to the monitor though, with the big square connector, does this make any difference to the max Watts you can pull ?

eternizer wrote:CDFreaks reviewed the SE-T084L model. I believe it's the same model. Here's link to the review:
http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/Samsung ... er-Review/

ah ! thanks, i was searching for T084M wasn't able to find it

wim wrote:would it be impossible to run this drive from the usb ports on the side of my monitor? (dell 3008wfp)
there are 2 usb ports there but it must be a hub because there is only one cable which connects those two ports to a single usb on the motherboard. it is one of the chunky usb cables which extends up to the monitor though, with the big square connector, does this make any difference to the max Watts you can pull ?

It should be possible. The USB spec says 500mA per port, or 2.5W. Dell monitors are quite good, you should not have any problems. In fact, chances are you will only need one connector anyway.

thanks.. i am not sure whether the power supply of the usb ports from the monitor is coming through the monitor's own power cable or through the usb cable from the motherboard. but i'll give it a shot and post the results on the forums.

i would like to buy one of these, but staticICE is not listing any shops which stock them, does anyone know if these are available in australia and if so where can i order one??

This is now on my short list of upgrades. Great review, i'm glad you went with a slot loader, hate the trays.

I find it best when pursuing silence in PC's to leave out ODD's, as they tend to make a lot of noise during bootup as well as draw idle power even though they arnt doing anything. A single external optical drive for all your computers that you only plug in when you actually need it.

seems to be completely unavailable in australia
(despite them having a big picture of it on samsung.com.au when you go to the optical drives section?!)

any other external slot loading drives people can recommend?
edit: or an online shop that will post internationally?