Good drive for scanning only

CD, DVD and (Ultra HD) Blu-ray Writers
#1

I understand the problems with ‘what drive is best’ posts, but I have been reading the forum for a week or so with the idea of getting another drive for the scanning of the DVD’s I have burnt with the drives in my sig, I use the LG more as I have found it to be a better drive.
This drive might get used on a PCI controller card, or it might not depends on how I feel about breaking down my system and re-building my RIAD drives :wink:

I have read that the NEC drives are not so good at scanning, and with my own checks the same disk can give me quite wide results, and it ‘seems’ to me that its either a Liteon or a BenQ that look to be the better drives for scans. I also want to be able to use as many tools to check with this drive as this ‘should’ give me a better overall idea if some of my backup disks need changing or DVD backups need renewing.

Any ideas of pointer to threads/sites that can help me with this, cheers.

#2

I’d go for LiteOn. You can use either CD-DVD Speed or KProbe2, your preference.

Only downside is they’re not too reliable when it comes to scanning CD media. BenQ or some NEC drives are better for that.

The Media Testing/Identifying Software Forum has plenty of sticky threads about scanning, scanning programs etc.

:slight_smile:

#3

If you can afford it, go for a plextor drive: with plextools they have a plenty of tools to check media quality.

Anyway, I agree with [B]Arachne[/B]: a liteon drive is one of the best choices to do DVD media scans.

#4

Plextor drives are very capable and reliable scanners, but they are painfully slow for scanning DVD media.

Anyway, I agree with Arachne: a liteon drive is one of the best choices to do DVD media scans.

I agree too. I also agree with Arachne about CD scanning - LiteOn DVD burners are almost useless for CD scanning, BenQ drives are OK and NEC drives are even better because they report C2 errors in a more useful way.

So it really depends on which of these scanning parameters are most important for you:

DVD Scanning
Fast scans: Forget about the Plextor drives, they are the slowest. BenQ and LiteOn are faster with a small speed advantage to LiteOn due to a scanning dip problem with many BenQ drives.

Useful scans: Forget about BenQ drives, because they hate to scan DVDs burned in some other drives (e.g. LiteOn, LG, NEC, Plextor). LiteOn and Plextor drives are more useful.

I suggest: Any LiteOn “6S” series drive, or “5S” if you can’t get a “6S”.

CD Scanning
Fast scans: Any NEC, BenQ or Plextor will do, as well as LiteOn CD-RW drives.

Useful scans: Forget about LiteOn DVD burners, because they are unreliable for this purpose. BenQ 1650/1555 are OK for this purpose because they report C1 and Jitter in a useful way, but they unfortunately seem to only report the worst kind of C2 errors (E32). NEC DVD burners are even better, because they report both C1 and C2 in a useful way - they don’t report jitter however. Plextor drives are even better, because they can also report “beta” values - their jitter scans are hard to interpret however.

I suggest: A Plextor drive if you can afford it, otherwise a NEC drive or BenQ drive.

Disclaimer: I haven’t considered drives that I don’t have personal experience with.

#5

:bow: at [B]DrageMester[/B] for this very clear and complete answer :iagree:

#6

Yes, thanks, and of course to the others who replied, am a bit annoyed I have not spent more time reading the Media Testing/Identifying Software Forum :o (will be doing that now) or maybe I have because I’ve been using searches to find out answers.

Plextor
Do seem to have the goods tool wise, but I am glad to hear about the slow DVD scanning because it will be the bulk of the work, each of my backup images are done across 2 CD-RW’s ATM but I am moving more to DVD +RW where I can, drive permitting. But, I dont seem to have had a lot of luck with optical drives and dont know if I want to spend Plextor money on a drive just for this purpose, but it is something to think about.

NEC
Now I have an NEC drive and I thought I had read that they were not the best as the results can be a bit random ?
I also have no faith in NEC drives after using this one I have RMA’d the one before (I dont think I got the same drive back ?) and it still does not burn anything other than CD’s for me.

Liteon
This was where I had been going and still think so…
But I also think BenQ looks like another good choice ?

Thanks again people… I feel I still need to do some more reading.

#7

Nothing wrong with using the Search function! :slight_smile:

I’d go LiteOn for scanning rather than BenQ (but see Drage’s remarks above re: CD scanning)…I believe BenQ drives can be…peculiar about scanning DVD discs burned on some other drives. :wink:

#8

Hi,

Nothing is better for backups than DVD-RAM (provided, UDF filesystem is used).

Considering the rest and the statement, that you possibly have to rebuild your rig: Liteons work good in external enclosures. So, SHM-165P6S or Sony DW-G120A or their Lightscribe capable brothers may be a good choice. And these drives support DVD-RAM.

Michael

#9

My vote goes for a new LiteOn. I’m going to get the 165P6S in a couple weeks to use for scanning and reading. I have my Pioneer for burning :slight_smile:

#10

Looking at your sig, forget BenQ cos they hate the LG 4167 burns and report lots of false positive errors when there may be none actually.

#11

How can you tell which errors are false positive? It may be just wishful thinking, IMO.

#12

Mountains of errors, even POEs, acc. to BenQ scans but disc & files copy just fine onto HD, disc plays smooth on standalone too - proof of the pudding is in the eating.

#13

Sorry, but it is just your inference, far from being the proof. Let me call your attention to how a reader behaves in reading a disc and in checking disc quality. When reading a disc, the drive will slow down and even reread when needed; whereas the drive may not slow down (depending on the drive used) and does not reread in PI/PO error scanning. So a disc may still be readable even when POFs are reported in disc quality test, not to say POEs. Moreover, it is not safe to use disc quality test to assess the readability of discs, as false negatives, though rare, have been reported. In contrast, false positives by Benq drives have not been proven (I doubt it will ever be).

#14

I have seen both false negatives and false positives with my BenQs.

Here are two examples, notice the transfer is perfectly smooth without any spin downs. Both were burned on a LG GSA-H10N during my recent testing.

Also generally speaking, LGs are poorer readers than BenQs. Perhaps, your own experience differs.

RicohRW_8x@8x_Scan2_QS0.png641×530 45.2 KB

RicohRW_8x@8x_Transfer2_QS0.png641×530 36.7 KB

RicohRW_8x@8x_Scan_QS0.png641×530 47 KB

RicohRW_8x@8x_Transfer.png641×530 37.8 KB

#15

You have used different readers to do the two kinds of tests. The results obtained with drives of different models or makers may differ. Also, with such as above discs the test results may vary significantly from run to run, so several scans need to be done before drawing any conclusion. Thirdly, I am not sure whether there is always no skips in transfer read test.

#16

I usually use the LG to do the transfer rate tests since the LG is a poorer reader than the BenQ so it is more sensitive to poor burn quality on transfer.

#17

That generalization is OK for routine check only, IMO. To prove that a drive reports false positive PI/PO errors, solid data are needed. The same drive ought to be used for doing both disc quality test and transfer rate test, preferably at the same speed setting.

#18

I don’t think it is possible to prove anything based on a sample size of 1 burner alone but I am satisfied with the the drawn inference so far. And I also disagree that the same drive statement in your last post.

Have it your way all the same. :slight_smile:

#19

It makes no sense to make a transfer rate test with a reduzed speed setting.
A TFT should be done at full speed, while a scan at the speed, your drive works the best (8x for benQ, 4x for LiteOn,…)

#20

I believe that he’s trying to show that for the DW1640 to be confrmed as reporting false positives, it needs to be shown that it can read at the same settings despite reporting errors at that speed. So if the DW1640 cannot do a proper TFT test on the same disc then it is implied that the errors are really there ie. no false positives. In other words, it is a poor reader of that disc but it is reporting accurately.

Thru’ my own experience, I am convinced that the DW1640 is a very good reader almost on par with Liteons. Knowing this, it isn’t easy to give an explanation why the LG is able to do the full TFTs successfully (with or without riplock) on the same discs as shown above. Thus, I am more into assessing the false positives reported by the DW1640 when compared to other drives esp. poorer readers at their max read speeds.

As stated earlier, nothing can be proven nor can I provide “solid data” as demanded with just one burner so I am off this thread.