Nero’s CD Speed benchmarks the writing performance. The Samsung WriteMaster is tested using our standardized protocol for optical drives.

We’ll see if that hold true for the Samsung WriteMaster as well. Often, even with writers that handle both “families” of discs, they’re more adept at the standard that the company originally supported. Samsung is a member of the DVD Forum, developers of the “minus” standard. Their drives are jointly developed with Toshiba. They have been making optical drives for some time now. Samsung is an electronics company based in South Korea. Let’s see how a USB 2.0 connection can really speed things up, and how this drive performs. However, this was using a parallel port connection which really didn’t have nearly enough bandwidth. My first optical drive was an external CD writer. In the past, I have had a less than thrilling experience with external optical drives. For any of these scenarios, an external drive is well worth considering. Families or offices with multiple computers may find it more cost efficient to share one DVD drive among a few computers. Power users may have a desire for a second drive to complement their existing drive. Notebook optical drives are notoriously difficult to upgrade. Some desktop users may not feel comfortable opening up their computer case to swap drives. Not all users want to open their computer up to upgrade their drive. In the end, a DVD writer can be purchased for only a few more bucks than a CD writer, making the choice a real “no brainer.” After all, it can handle reading and writing duties for both your CD’s and DVD’s with one drive. The optical drive of choice for a computer today is clearly a DVD writer.

Super writemaster speed plus manual