LG GSA-H10A detail information

For these tests we will use Nero CD-DVD Speed to read various types of CD 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 a Nero Ultra Edition OEM install CD that is close to 77 minutes long. Below you will see the produced result:

The LG GSA-H10A reached 47.85x on this pressed CD. Let’s compare the result in the table below:

The LG GSA-H10A performed above average while reading a pressed CD-ROM.

CD-Recordable Discs:

For this test we made a copy of the original Nero Ultra Edition OEM install CD. The disc we used was an Ritek 52X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Ridata. 

Again the LG GSA-H10A performed above average on the CD-R read test.

* Some drives including the NU HDW-164 will simply execute the seek command without actually moving the pickup.

 CD-Rewritable discs:

Again, we made a copy of the original Nero Ultra Edition OEM install CD. The disc we used was a Maxell 4x-12x certified CD-RW disc manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation. 

As we can see the LG GSA-H10A reads at 40x when reading a CD-RW. Now let’s compare it to some other drives below.

The LG GSA-H10A performance is about average when reading a CD-RW disc.

* Some drives including the NU HDW-164 will simply execute the seek command without actually moving the pickup.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

We used Nero CD-DVD Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is a bit smaller than the disc used for the other tests, to be more precise, it’s about 74 minutes long.

The LG GSA-H10A is locked at 40x when reading CD-DA. Let’s compare the result with some other drives:

The LG GSA-H10A performance is a little below average on the Audio-CD.

* Some drives including the NU HDW-164 will simply execute the seek command without actually moving the pickup.

As a last test we used Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to extract the audio to our hard drive. According to EAC the LG drive does not support Caching, which is considered a plus while ripping digital audio.

Below is the result produced by EAC:

 Burst mode

 Secure mode

The drive performed OK when in burst mode but was very slow when in secure mode.

Advanced audio – DAE quality test:

Before we move on to testing DVD read speeds, we will make a last digital audio test. This time we used the ‘Advanced DAE Quality Test’ feature in CD-DVD Speed. For this test we used a CD-R DA media from Memorex.

The digital audio extracting quality is excellent and it is reported to support everything except reading data from the Leadout.

DVD reading performance:

Again, we will use Nero CD-DVD Speed to measure the reading performance, this time for various types of DVD discs.

DVD – DVD-Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with a single layer and Double Layered DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies it is 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

The LG GSA-H10A is locked at 4.8x when reading DVD-Video Single Layer and Double/Dual Layer pressed discs.

The LG GSA-H10A performance was well below average on the DVD-Video Single Layer Double/Dual Layer tests.

DVD – DVD+R(W):

For this test we used a Memorex 16X DVD+R and a Maxell 4X DVD+RW with 4.38Gb of data. Below are the results:

DVD+R

 
DVD+RW

The LG GSA-H10A is read locked at 10x on DVD+R and 8x on DVD+RW.

Now let’s see how it will perform on DVD-R/RW.

DVD – DVD-R/RW:

For this test we used a Memorex 16X DVD-R disc and a Maxell 2X DVD-RW disc filled with 4.38Gb of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

 
DVD-RW

There are only minor differences on DVD-R/RW when compared to reading the DVD+R/RW discs.

Once again the LG GSA-H10A is read locked at 10x on DVD-R and 8x on DVD-RW.

DVD-RAM

For this test we used a Maxell 5x DVD-RAM disc and below we see the result:

The LG GSA-H10A reads DVD-RAM media at 5x and it reads the test disc without problems.

Overall thoughts:

The LG GSA-H10A is a very good reader. It is read locked to slower speeds on some of the media types, but during our read tests it proved itself as a very reliable reader.

But now it’s time to head on to a more interesting part: Writing CD-R and CD-RW discs…

Features

CD-R/RW Writing performance