Hardware Recommendations #523
Replies: 3 comments 1 reply
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Thank you for your post and for choosing fre:ac! It's great that you are still using it after so any years. The DS-8A8SH is manufactured by Philips Lite-On and I would expect it to be extremely common. If it is reasonably fast, meets your requirements and does not have any obvious flaws (more on that further down), I would say any drive is usable for ripping nowadays. As AccurateRip compares your ripping results to other users', you can be almost absolutely sure to have a perfect rip if you get a successful verification. At the same time, this allows you to check your drive. Just rip a number of discs that are in the AccurateRip database to see if they verify correctly. If you get mismatches on all tracks of a disc, that's usually just a different pressing or wrong offset. But if only a few tracks fail to verify, that may be a drive issue. I have two Samsung drives here (SH-D163B and SH-S203N) and the first one often produces bit flips. Ripping the faulty tracks again then usually yields a successful rip, so it's still usable with AccurateRip, but I wouldn't trust it for discs which are not in the AccurateRip database. Having multiple drives (preferably different models) also allows you to compare rips between the drives when a disc is not in the AccurateRip database. If you get the same results with two different drives, you can be quite sure to have a good rip. |
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In the past (long-time user (from back when Fre:AC was known as BonkEnc; thanks for a well-designed tool, @enzo1982), first time poster) I would simply use whatever optical drive was included with the host.
However, now that especially (new(er)) laptops come without an internal optical drive, and dedicated external (USB) drive(s) are required, do users (or contributors/developers with technical insights) have particular (USB) hardware they recommend for quality/accuracy, reliability/endurance, and/or performance?
I'm on a small island, so acquiring any specialist tech is non-easy. I did find a local retailer selling SandBerg-branded rewriters (which I needed for other reasons, anyway) for a modest/reasonable price (~£30, if I recall).
Upon interrogation, the drive reports (over USB) itself as
The USB device
Vendor ID
(0x152D
) matches JMicron Technology Corp., who seem to be the manufacturer of the USB–ATAPI bridge used in the device.The USB device
Product ID
reported is0x2329
.Based on some brief searching on Amazon, it appears that these drives are somewhat generic, with several different rebrandings; one manufacturer with multiple resellers (which is much more common, in manufacturing, than most people are aware).
Took a gamble, and was pleasantly surprised.
Capabilities
as0x94
(Removable
,UniqueID
,SurpriseRemovalOK
) — so multiple units of the same drive, connected to the same host, should function without conflict (in honest confession, I haven't yet got around to connecting the second drive I bought)Power State
s implemented/available:D0
,D2
,D3
,wake from D0
,wake from D2
eject
commands; so semi-automated mass-extraction should be possibleI'm willing to supply more (specific) technical data, if anyone wishes.
I was pleased enough that I bought another (for duel-wielding, among other uses), while there were other units of the same model available on the retailer's shelves.
Only downside is that it can be somewhat noisy, when the disc is spun-up, especially to a high RPM. Though, even playback of DVDs (as in, watching cinéma) can be a bit distracting. However, mine happens to be next to me on a non-large desk (and significantly closer than the speakers). Other users may be able to mitigate this by placing it further away, with noise-dampening material between the drive and their ears. Or use headphones.
Actual power-draw is unclear; with the extra power cable connected, it reports being self-powered, with a (max) draw of 2mA (yes, just two), which doesn't make sense. I have it connected to a decent-spec hub, and it's been very stable, even when extracting rapidly. So, can't be that much in reality.
Being a slimline drive (as used to be in laptops, rather than desktops), it does feature a warning to not press on the top surface of the housing while the drive is in operation.
According to the AccurateRip drive-offset database, these types of drives are quite popular.
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