CD RomDrive

[blackthorn]

I was looking through some old pc bits that I`ve gathered over the last couple of years and I decided to put in my current pc an extra cd rom drive. I had a spare bay and I`ve never done it before so I thought I`d give it a go.
It works but it seems very slow at reading a disk, so what I want to know is, how can I find out the read speed of a drive.

[Alanmelon]

The following app is not comprehensive, but should test your drives and also measure system temps, its free too!

Speedfan

Either that, or for a more comprehensive test, Sisoft SANDRA (just do a google for it, or check download.com) is also good.

[blackthorn]

Thanks for your help.
Sisoft Sandra proved inconclusive, it could not determine the speed. Never mind, I`ll keep looking.

[altis]

You could try Aida32. This does not have any CD benchmarking but it has a large database of drives and, if it knows about yours, it can tell you how fast it should be.

Try Google or here:
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...3043&fileidx=1

Originally Posted by blackthorn

It works but it seems very slow at reading a disk, so what I want to know is, how can I find out the read speed of a drive.

Excuse me if this is a silly/ obvious question, but does it have a makers name or product code on it at all? Googling on that may give the information you need.

[SMHarman]

Over the last few years CD read spead has increased exponentially until it has hit the media limit of 52x, faster than this the disk is too unstable and the laser cannot track the horizontal wobble.

You may well find the old disk is 4-8x speed. If you are used to any newer drives, this will seem pedestrian in comparison.

[blackthorn]

Thanks for everyones help
Found out make and model through Nero and its a samsung sd 608.
Samsungs website informs me its read speed is 8x so thats why its slow compared to my Toshiba drive.
Anyway, its the first piece of hardware I`ve installed, so at least I`ve learnt something. I`ll probably go out and buy a faster one now, as I can actually fit one. Thanks

[Matth]

SD608 is a DVD-ROM - so that would be 8x DVD read, and ought to be faster on CD.

[ZrByte]

Originally Posted by Matth

SD608 is a DVD-ROM - so that would be 8x DVD read, and ought to be faster on CD.

Probably only about a 24X or 32X though, and since most drives of this era used PIO and most modern ones use UDMA it would seem slower anyway.

[paulyoung666]

Originally Posted by blackthorn

Thanks for everyones help
Found out make and model through Nero and its a samsung sd 608.
Samsungs website informs me its read speed is 8x so thats why its slow compared to my Toshiba drive.
Anyway, its the first piece of hardware I`ve installed, so at least I`ve learnt something. I`ll probably go out and buy a faster one now, as I can actually fit one. Thanks

you can get a 52x writer for about £20 now and an 8x dvd writer for around £50 , cheap as chips to coin a phrase

[Matth]

http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?download_id=162 SD608 firmware

http://www.samsung.com/mea/english/optical_sd-608.htm - Specs
8x DVD, 40x CD - Modes PIO4 and DMA MW2 (both 16.6Mb/s, but less CPU usage with DMA - not ULTRA! enabled)

Check speed and CPU uasge with this http://cdspeed2000.com/