I'm on my 2nd Samsung 203N which is as loud as a truck, looses its 'place' when reading things, & overall, I hate it.

So the two drives above are available from NewEgg and from what I've been reading, Pioneer seems to have the quietest drives.

Which is quieter? Any other recommendations for a quality, & quiet DVD RW drive? I've seen the recent thread where someone asked about drives but these two models were not talked about extensively.

As far as I know, the two drives have the same internals, but only differ in terms of interface.

I own the 215 and its perfectly good for watching movies, cant hear it at all.
When writing or reading data it does pick up but its a nicer sound than most cheaper drives which ive owned before.
I guess it really depends on what you are looking for. Just playing movies this is ideal, if you want quiet data reading then whatever drive you get you'll have to control its speed because its the disc that makes the noise, not the drive.

Have you tried limiting the read speed of your drive with Nero DriveSpeed when not using it to install large files? With DriveSpeed enabled, my Samsung 202N is rather quiet. Any optical drive will make a fair amount of noise when running at high speeds.

+1 on limiting the read speed of your drive with Nero DriveSpeed

Hey Guys, thanks for the replies & ideas. No, I haven't actually tried using the speed settings. I'll give it a go before buying a new drive. Another option I have is to keep my IDE plextor drive when I switch all my hard drives over to SATA. That drive didn't do all this nutty stuff.

Bought the DVR-215DBK to replace my Samsung 203B which was horrible. I am forever glad I made the switch.

The 215 is of course loud when unbridled, but the sound it makes is much smoother, much more controlled than the Samsung's. It just sounds like more of a quality product. In addition, unlike with the 203B, I haven't had to install any (shitty, Engrish-riddled and bogus) software or update the firmware, as the control is brilliant as-is: the drive spins down nice and fast, there are no extra squeaks or whines like there were with the Samsung and it doesn't want to shred my Battlefield 2142 disc!

It sounds like a tank in a positive sense while writing, and is whisper-quiet with movies. Pioneer is highly recommended by me from here on in, and I hear they're making an improved, damped version right now.

Pioneer 1 - 0 Samsung

My 203B emitted an annoying whine even at low speeds, and I replaced it with a Lite-On 201AL, which is quiet. My 215D is very quiet. However, I ripped a CD with the 215D, and partway through, I heard it slow down, which was not a total surprise, as the CD wasn't in the best condition. Although Easy CD-DA Extractor reported no errors, I'm glad I listened to it, because I heard a couple of glitches corresponding to the slow-down. Consequently, I won't be using the Pioneer to rip any more CDs. My plan is to use the Lite-On to rip everything, and the Pioneer to burn.

Good to know, tima. I've only ripped some old, self-made CDs in fair condition and haven't run into any snags yet.

i got the 215D last week and it's quiet while watching a movie, and it's not noisy as my old LG GSA-H10A@H10N, that it replaced, in copy/burn operations

i did not rip any audio CDs yet

@Das_Saunamies and others:
does the Pioneer 215D respond to Nero Drivespeed?
For DVD?
and for CDs (in particular, audio CDs)?

I have just tried an old Pioneer (107D), and doesn't respond to Drivespeed for audio CDs nor for DVDs. I don't know if newer Pioneers are any different.

I haven't bothered trying Drivespeed because the 215 is quiet enough by itself!

BTW I just burned two Traxdata DVD-RW 2x and the 215DBK while burning is quieter than my system ( yes i know that 2x is rather low but this is pretty good , compared to my old LG GSA-H10A@H10N anyway )

I believe you, Das_Saunamies, but I am worried. Maybe the Pioneer is intelligent enough to speed down when you are reading certain media, as DVD movies, or CDAudio. But... what happens when you play other multimedia files in other formats? What happens if you play a divx file from the DVD disk? does it slow down?

And, if it really slows down, that could be a problem too: what happens if you want to move audio-video files fast from the DVD disk to the hard disk? Does it also slow down?