Samsung SATA SH-S183L DVD-RAM Question

vbimport
#1

I recently built a new system running Win XP x64, and got this drive. Tonight I formatted a DVD-RAM disc (Panasonic 2-3x speed) using FAT 32. I started writing a bunch of photos to the disc, and was only getting speeds of about 35.9 KB/s. The software I was using said it would have taken about 6 hours to copy the whole directory.

I aborted the copy, and reformatted the same disc using UDF 2.0. On the same dir copy, was getting peak speeds of 3.18 MB/s with avg. speeds of 1.8 MB/s. It finished in about 20 minutes. I was previously under the impression that there wasn’t that much of a difference between the two formats, so this was a surprise.

Does it sound like something is wrong with the drive, or is that normal?

Thanks…

#2

In order to use XP’s buit in write capabilities to write directly to the disc it must be formatted in FAT32; if you use a “Packet Writing Software” ie, InCD, DragtoDisc then you can use a UDF formatted disc. The UDF formatt is widely concidered to be faster.

#3

Found it; here is a link to some information on RAM discs.

#4

Hi,

This is not unusual with FAT32 :wink:

I aborted the copy, and reformatted the same disc using UDF 2.0. On the same dir copy, was getting peak speeds of 3.18 MB/s with avg. speeds of 1.8 MB/s. It finished in about 20 minutes.
This is what to expect. But use UDF 1.5 for that kind of data. UDF 2.0 is the better option for video or similar large files.

Does it sound like something is wrong with the drive, or is that normal?
No, there is nothing wrong with your drive. FAT32 is absolutely not suited for media like DVD-RAM, there is not only poor performance, but also the lifetime of the disc is decreased. So avoid FAT32 on DVD-RAM at all circumstances.

Michael