detail information

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 Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD that is close to 74 minutes long. Below you will see the produced result:

The Samsung SE-W164L reached 47.80x. Let's compare the result in the table below:

The Samsung SE-W164L was the fastest drive reading pressed CD-ROM. The Seek Times is excellent.

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 Verbatim 48X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation. 

The Samsung SE-W164L is one of the slowest drives reading CD-Rs, due to the locked read speed at 40x. The Seek Times is excellent.

 CD-Rewritable 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.

As we can see above, the Samsung SE-W164L is locked at 40x, reading CD-RW; now let us compare it to other drives below.

The Samsung SE-W164L performed average on CD-RW read test, and once again the Seek Times are excellent.

Audio - Digital Audio Extraction:

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 about 79 minutes long (78:53:31).

The Samsung SE-W164L reached 41.53x while reading CD-DA discs. Let us compare the result with other drives:

The Samsung SE-W164L performed average while reading Audio-CDs.

100 minutes CD:

We used Nero CD-DVD Speed to measure the transfer rate. The 100 min disc we used is slightly larger than the disc used for the other tests, to be exact it is 97 minutes and 50 seconds long.

The Samsung SE-W164L had no problems in reading our 100 minute test CD-R

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

Below is the results produced by EAC:

 Burst mode

 Secure mode

The drive performed well in burst mode, but rather slow in secure mode.

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 for sending us this media).

The extracting quality is excellent and it should support everything, except reading the Leadin/Leadout.

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.

DVD - 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 (OPT)

DVD-Video Double Layer (PTP)

As we can see the drive reached 16x on DVD-Video Single Layer and 8x on DVD-Video Double layer.

The Samsung SE-W164L performed excellently on the DVD-Video SL test and average on the DVD-Video DL test.

DVD - DVD+R/RW:

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

DVD+R

 
DVD+RW

The Samsung SE-W164L performed average on DVD+R/RW. Now let us see how it will perform on DVD-R/RW.

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 SE-W164L performed average on DVD-R/RW.

Overall thoughts:

The Samsung SE-W164L is a respectable reader, it is by no means the fastest reader on the block, but during our read tests it proved reliable.

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