LG Electronics GSA-4165B Super Multi Drive

[mobilenvidia]

Just received this drive the other day. (3rd August 2005)

I was supposed to get the GSA-4163B drive as ordered, but this drive must be a replacment for it, a bonus for me :)

The drive is just in plain white to make it look a little better in my external case.

Drive went into the USB2.0/Firewire external case with no hassles at all, the screw holes all lined up nicely.

The drive is a nice white not brght and not beige.

I left the drive Master which it came in by default.

The drive is extremely quiet, it can't be heard at all, only in the Nero Seektime test do you hear it.

The tray is motorised and has a nice smooth action, if disc is not in properly it doesn't force the issue too much, so it shouldn't eat or scratch the media.

All Media I put in the drive was burned with ease, except DVD-RAM

DVD-RAM became a curse after awhile, I couldn't get the files onto the disk

I formatted with INCD latest version but after about 10min of burning the drive would just switch off.

I then searched for answers and found a Panasonic Formatter, this fixed the formatting problem and I was able to put files onto the disk.

Keep in mind that DVD-RAM @ 3x speed really burns at aprox 1x with the error checking it does.

The ability to treat the disk as a Hard drive is a real bonus, just drag 'n drop files.

All other DVD formats were a sinch to burn.

DVD+R 16x even burned, the laptop could just keep up with the amount of data being burned.

One odd thing that happened I couldn't burn an ISO to this drive with Nero.

It worked with my other drive, but the process started and got to 12% and then stopped.

Since the Firware update to DL04 this has been fixed but it's very slow to get started it takes about 30sec to start burning.

Here are my machine specs:

Gataway Solo 9550 Laptop.

PIII-M 1.06Ghz

512MB PC133Mhz RAM

30GB HD

CDRW/DVD drive internal

LG GSA-4165B Super Multi Drive via external Firewire enclosure.

The specs from various places combined:

Write Speed (DVD+R) : 2.4x, 4x (CLV), 8x (ZCLV), 12x, 16x (PCAV) 
Write Speed (DVD+R DL) : 2.4x , 4x (CLV)
Write Speed (DVD-R) : 2x, 4x (CLV), 8x (ZCLV), 16x (PCAV)
Write Speed (DVD-R DL) : 2x, 4x (CLV)
Write Speed (DVD+RW) : 2.4x, 4x (CLV), 8x (ZCLV)
Write Speed (DVD-RW) : 1x, 2x, 4x, 6x (CLV) 
Write Speed (DVD-RAM) : 2x, 3x (ZCLV) (Ver.2.2), 3x-5x (PCAV)(Ver.2.2) 
Write Speed (CD-R) : 4x, 8x, 16x (CLV), 24x, 32x, 48x (ZCLV) 
Write Speed (CD-RW) : 4x, 10x,16x (CLV),24x, 32x (ZCLV)

Read Speed (CD-R) : 17-48x (CAV)
Read Speed (CD-RW) : 17-40x (CAV)
Read Speed (DVD-ROM) : SL 7-16x, DL 3.3-8x (CAV)
Read Speed (DVD-+R) : 4.2-10x (CAV)
Read Speed (DVD-+RW) : 3.3-8x (CAV)
Read Speed (DVD-RAM) : v1.0 2x, v2.2 2x, 3x (ZCLV), 3x-5x (PCAV)
Read Speed (DVD-VIDEO) : 3.3-8x (CAV)
Read Speed (DVD+R DL) : 3.3-8x (CAV)


Write Method(DVD-RAM) : Random write 
Write Method(DVD-R/RW) : Disk-at-Once, Incremental Recording  
Write Method(DVD-R/RW) : Restricted Overwrite (DVD-RW only) 
Write Method(DVD+R) : Sequential Recording 
Write Method(DVD+RW) : Random Write 
Write Method(CD-R/RW) : Disk-at-Once, Track-at-Once 
Write Method(CD-R/RW) : Session-at-Once, Packet Write 

Data Transfer Rate(CD) : Max 6,000KB/s, DVD: Max 22.16 Mbytes/s 

Access Time(CD) : 125 ms, DVD-ROM 145 ms, DVD-RAM 165 ms 

Buffer Size : 2MB with buffer under run prevention technology 

Loading Type : Motorized Tray 

Interface Type : E-IDE / ATAPI 

Compatible Formats Write : DVD-RAM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-R/RW 
Compatible Formats Read : DVD-RAM, DVDR/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD-ROM 
Compatible Formats Read : CD-R/RW, CD-ROM Mode 1, 2 CD-DA, CD-IFMV 
Compatible Formats Read : CD-ROM XA, Mixed CD, CD-Extra, CD-Text 
Compatible Formats Read : CD-Plus, Photo-CD, Video CD

Performance:

The tests were done with the drive hooked up via Firewire.

All times are total times reported from Nero and includes Lead-in and out.

CDRW and DVDRW were timed from the momemt the folder to copy was clicked onto the empty newly formatted disk.

Write tests:

Using Nero v6.6.0.9 that came with drive.

All media is from Imation, except DVD-RAM which was Panasonic 2-3x

CDRW write 408MB @24x (3.6MB/sec) speed took 3:45min

CD-R write 690MB @48x (7.2MB/sec) speed took 3:23min

DVD+R DL write 8GB @2.4x speed took 43:11min or 3.12MB/sec

DVD+R Write 4.2GB @12x speed took 9:13min

DVD-R Write 4GB @8x speed took 9:43min or 7.03GB

Read Tests:

Using Nero CD/DVD Speed 4.04, click on link for full details.

CD Pressed CD test.

DVD Dual layer Pressed DVD

DVD-R Dual Layer DVD-R Dual layer burned @2.4X

DVD+R DVD+R burned @ 16x

DVD-R Dual layer not tested yet as I have no media.

DVD-R DVD-R burned @8x

DVD+RW 4x buning 4.08GB 5197 files took 20:20min

DVD-RW not tested yet as I have no media.

DVD-RAM 3x Burning 4.08GB 5197 files took

[update] New Firmware out DL04 to replace original DL03

¡Ø New firmware (ver. DL04) for only GSA-4165B(Internal 16X Super multi DVD Writer)

¡ß Model:GSA-4165B

¡ß Ver:DL04

¡ß Improvement Point

  -. Improvement of rewriting ability for DVD-RAM

  -. Improvement of recording quality for Ultra speed CD-RW

  -. Improvement of recording quality for some DVD¡¾R and DVD¡¾RW

Latest Matsushita driver (5021),Download driver extract to default dir then run setup.

[Bill]

Is it possible that you have a better burner than my nice new Benq DW1625 black Lightscribe drive?

Anyway nice burner, if it was a lightscribe drive (retail anyway) it would probably come with a lightscribe CD, which has no label but the gold lightscribe surface and a shiney ring around the center. (diff ring than non lightscribe disks)

Anyway maybe if you know someone that has an extra lightscribe disk you could try to burn a label with yours, I could hook you up with some software too, the Nero suite should have it, and works just fine on mine using a firewire enclosure.

What enclosure are you using? I got this and it owns.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16817145655 (need to write a review for it....)

Some DVD burners (mine included) do not work well or at all with USB enclosures, I have tested my burner in many USB2 enclosures on different computers using usb1 and usb2 and it just doesn't work right, our desktop's old dvd drive does though.

My burner works fine with firewire, which is faster anyway.

That enclosure is really sweet, the 3.5 inch version is very good to for your external HDD needs, although if I get any more external drives I will just use SATA and find a power adapter. (they sell laptop SATA cards on newegg, I might get a desktop card and use it in a docking station though)

[mobilenvidia]

Bill, I'm using this enclosure (Freedata)

It's quite a pretty box, very easy to get into, performs really well.

The only niggle is the fan can be heard, not loud or anything but just audible.

I'm wrapped with my purchase, I saved my self $60 by buting this in combo in 2 pieces (not buying a premade DVD/Enclosure)

As for the DVD burner, I can't find any info on it.

The above is probably the best info now available on the web.

I'll get onto the review as soon as I do some speed test, I'll have to get some different media together.

I still doubt it's light scribe capable, I didn't really want that anyway, I just write on it with a vivid marker (yes naughty I know :) )

[Bill]

For speed tests a fast desktop PC might be in order, but anyway.....

Mine is very nice, is your drive black, silver, or the ugly baige color, mine is black and even though newegg only had the silver version of that enclosure available, it looks really nice, front and back sides are black, and the front of the drive I have is really nice looking.

The lightscribe feature is excellent, as soon as I get around to buying more verbatim lightscribe disks and burn some lables with my laser, I'll post some pics up, you will never want to touch a marker again once you see how good lightscribe can look, especially if your handwriting is really bad like mine, I doubt you could read my handwritting.

I should post some pics of my homemade longhorn dvd, wrote on it myself, and that is on a good handwriting day..... :)

[Guest Guest]

thank you very much guys!!!

[Guest Guest]

I don't understand. tell me pls is this matushita driver(5021) <=> with driver "dl03 for gsa-4165B"?

I updated to dl05, and my dvdRW ain't working no more. Pls help me find the dl03 for this gsa-4165B

[mobilenvidia]

The driver doesn't have the firmware with it, it's a seperate download.

The driver only allows to be able to drag and drop and format DVD-RAM disks.

DON'T use the driver if you already have Nero's INCD or any other packet writing software.

Uninstall these first before using the Panasonic driver