Page 1: Intro, Box, Specs, Drive, Installation, Conclusion
Intro
While the majority of reviews on computer hardware focus on performance parts, few look at other areas of a system that seem to be neglected. One area is the optical drive. While flash memory is treading dangerously close to a price that many will stop using optical media, the optical drive is an essential component for boxed software delivery. LITEON has delivered quality optical drives for many years and the latest 22x Serial ATA DVDRW (iHAS422) hopes to continue the trend.
Box
The LITEON retail packaging is easy enough to distinguish on the shelf of a computer hardware store (if any are available in your area).
Specs
Since this a consumer electronic site, we'll be forgoing the benchmarks and such on this standard optical drive. As a general rule, ASE Labs recommends writing at lower speeds than the drive maximum. For audio CDs, 1x is optimal. For data, we tend to stick to 16x for CD, 4x for DVD. You might wait a few minutes to burn a disk, but your data is safer...
Drive
The retail packaging includes a white replacement faceplate (the unit is pre-installed with a black faceplate), mounting screws, a Serial ATA cable, Nero 7 Essentials for Windows and some documentation.
Surprise! It is a standard 5.25" optical drive. Was there an expectation of anything more? Thankfully, the drives today are defaulting to the black faceplate since the majority of systems are a darker color instead of white.
The back of the drive contains the standard Serial ATA power and data connection. There are pins for use with jumpers. Perhaps it might be a hold over from the older IDE days of master/slave.
The model number of the drive is iHAS422-08 8. This drive was manufactured in October of 2008.
Installation
The drive was installed in a standard system running Ubuntu 8.10. Linux handles optical drives with ease and can even handle Lightscribe. A few test CDs of different distributions of Linux were burned and tested along with some data DVDRW disks and a few DL backups. The drive handled everything without issues as an optical drive in this day and age should. ASE Labs expects nothing less from a company like LITEON.
The drive copies data fast enough and is comparable with all modern optical drives on the market today. The balance of the unit is good, but there is still a bit of noise when the disk is rotating at high speed. It isn't obnoxious, but it is noticeable.
Conclusion
This drive retails for less than $30 which is a great price for all the features you get. This is a truly consumer ready drive and comes with the needed software if you run Windows. Linux users should be fine out of the box with just the hardware installation. You can't go wrong with a LITEON drive as they are featured in many OEM systems.
DVDRW drives are to the price point that it doesn't make sense not to have the best technology when building a new system. Blu-ray is at the premium price point and DVDRW drives will be here to stay for a long time.
ASE Labs would like to thank LITEON for making this review possible.
While the majority of reviews on computer hardware focus on performance parts, few look at other areas of a system that seem to be neglected. One area is the optical drive. While flash memory is treading dangerously close to a price that many will stop using optical media, the optical drive is an essential component for boxed software delivery. LITEON has delivered quality optical drives for many years and the latest 22x Serial ATA DVDRW (iHAS422) hopes to continue the trend.
Box
The LITEON retail packaging is easy enough to distinguish on the shelf of a computer hardware store (if any are available in your area).
Specs
Code
DVD Family
Write
DVD+R 22X maximum by CAV
DVD-R 22X maximum by CAV
DVD+R9 8X maximum by Zone CLV
DVD-R9 8X maximum by Zone CLV
DVD-RAM 12X maximum by PCAV
Rewrite
DVD+RW 8X by Z-CLV
DVD-RW 6X CLV
Read 16X maximum by CAV
Access time 160ms
CD Family
Write
CD-R 48X by CAV
Rewrite
CD-RW 32X maximum by Z-CLV in UltraSpeed disc
Read 48X(7200KB/sec) maximum by CAV
Access time 140ms
Buffer Size 2MB(MAX)
LightScribe labeling CDR Media V1.2; DVD+R Media V1.2
Write
DVD+R 22X maximum by CAV
DVD-R 22X maximum by CAV
DVD+R9 8X maximum by Zone CLV
DVD-R9 8X maximum by Zone CLV
DVD-RAM 12X maximum by PCAV
Rewrite
DVD+RW 8X by Z-CLV
DVD-RW 6X CLV
Read 16X maximum by CAV
Access time 160ms
CD Family
Write
CD-R 48X by CAV
Rewrite
CD-RW 32X maximum by Z-CLV in UltraSpeed disc
Read 48X(7200KB/sec) maximum by CAV
Access time 140ms
Buffer Size 2MB(MAX)
LightScribe labeling CDR Media V1.2; DVD+R Media V1.2
Since this a consumer electronic site, we'll be forgoing the benchmarks and such on this standard optical drive. As a general rule, ASE Labs recommends writing at lower speeds than the drive maximum. For audio CDs, 1x is optimal. For data, we tend to stick to 16x for CD, 4x for DVD. You might wait a few minutes to burn a disk, but your data is safer...
Drive
The retail packaging includes a white replacement faceplate (the unit is pre-installed with a black faceplate), mounting screws, a Serial ATA cable, Nero 7 Essentials for Windows and some documentation.
Surprise! It is a standard 5.25" optical drive. Was there an expectation of anything more? Thankfully, the drives today are defaulting to the black faceplate since the majority of systems are a darker color instead of white.
The back of the drive contains the standard Serial ATA power and data connection. There are pins for use with jumpers. Perhaps it might be a hold over from the older IDE days of master/slave.
The model number of the drive is iHAS422-08 8. This drive was manufactured in October of 2008.
Installation
The drive was installed in a standard system running Ubuntu 8.10. Linux handles optical drives with ease and can even handle Lightscribe. A few test CDs of different distributions of Linux were burned and tested along with some data DVDRW disks and a few DL backups. The drive handled everything without issues as an optical drive in this day and age should. ASE Labs expects nothing less from a company like LITEON.
The drive copies data fast enough and is comparable with all modern optical drives on the market today. The balance of the unit is good, but there is still a bit of noise when the disk is rotating at high speed. It isn't obnoxious, but it is noticeable.
Conclusion
This drive retails for less than $30 which is a great price for all the features you get. This is a truly consumer ready drive and comes with the needed software if you run Windows. Linux users should be fine out of the box with just the hardware installation. You can't go wrong with a LITEON drive as they are featured in many OEM systems.
DVDRW drives are to the price point that it doesn't make sense not to have the best technology when building a new system. Blu-ray is at the premium price point and DVDRW drives will be here to stay for a long time.
ASE Labs would like to thank LITEON for making this review possible.