Reading performance

For these tests we will use Nero CD/DVD-Speed to read various CD and DVD’s, including audio discs and DVD-media. As already mentioned in the introduction, this drive supports:

• DVD-ROM 16x
• CD-ROM 48x

Pressed discs:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing the Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD that is close to 75 minutes in length. Below you will see the produced result:

The Samsung SH-S203B reached 47.24x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Samsung SH-S203B proved to be one of the fastest drives at reading our test CD-ROM. Access and seek times were very good.

CD Recordable discs:

For this test we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD. The disc we used was a Ricoh 52X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Moser Baer India.

The Samsung SH-S203B reached 40.50x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Samsung SH-S203B performed about average with our CD-R test disc.

CD Re-writable discs:

Again, we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD; this time we used a Verbatim Ultra Speed (32X) CD-RW disc made by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

The Samsung SH-S203B reached 40.92x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Samsung SH-S203B was one of the fastest drives when reading CD-RW media.

100 minute CD-R:

The Samsung SH-S203B reached 44.72x when reading our test 100 minute CD-R and had no problems reading our 100 minute test CD.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the Samsung SH-S203B, again we used Nero CD/DVD-Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is slightly larger than the disc used for the other tests, to be exact it’s nearly 79 minutes in length (78:53:31).

The Samsung SH-S203B reached 41.54x when reading our test audio disc. Let’s compare it with some drives below.

The Samsung SH-S203B performed about average when reading our audio test CD.

Audio Extraction:

For this test we used EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to test the drives Audio extraction performance. As we can see from the screenshot below, the drive supports accurate stream and C2 error info and doesn’t support caching.

Below is the results produced by EAC:

Burst mode.

Secure mode.

The Samsung SH-S203B performed well in burst mode but slightly slower in secure mode. Overall, this is a very fast drive for ripping audio CD’s.

Advanced audio – DAE quality test:

Before we move on to testing DVD read speeds, we will take a last audio test, and this time we used the “Advanced DAE Quality Test” feature in CD-Speed. For this test we used a CD-R media from RICOH (Thanks to RICOH Europe (BV) for sending us this media).

The extraction quality was excellent and the performance was excellent.

DVD reading performance:

Again, we will use Nero CD-Speed to measure the reading performance, this time for various types of DVD discs. The drive should read pressed single layer DVD-discs at 16X.

Pressed DVD Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with a single and Double Layered DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it’s useful to be able to read the discs at higher speeds if you’re going to extract (rip) the content of the disc to your hard drive.

DVD Video (single layer)

DVD Video (double layer OTP)

DVD Video (double layer PTP)

The Samsung SH-S203B is not riplocked and read our single layer disc at 16x and our double layer test discs at 12x

The Samsung SH-S203B was one of the fastest drives when reading pressed DVD-Video media.

DVD – DVD+R/RW:

For this test we used a Verbatim 16X DVD+R and a RICOH 8X DVD+RW with about 4.4Gb of data. Below are the results:

DVD+R

DVD+RW

The Samsung SH-S203B was the fastest drive when reading DVD+R media and about average when reading DVD+RW media.

DVD – DVD-R/RW:

For this test we used a Verbatim 16X DVD-R disc and a Verbatim 6X DVD-RW disc filled with about 4.4Gb of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

DVD-RW

There are hardly any differences in the speed, compared to reading the DVD+R/RW discs.

Once again the Samsung SH-S203B was the fastest drive when reading DVD-R media and about average when reading DVD-RW media.

DVD±R DL discs:

DVD+R DL:

The Samsung SH-S203B read our DVD+R DL test disc at 12x reading speed.

DVD-R DL:

The Samsung SH-S203B read our DVD-R DL test disc at 12x reading speed.

DVD-RAM:

The Samsung SH-S203B read our DVD-RAM disc at 12x using a P-CAV reading method.

Summary:

The Samsung SH-S203B has excellent reading performance and is a very reliable reader

Now let’s head over to the next page where we will test CD-R/RW writing performance……