- Samsung SW-240B

The drive supports 40x writing (Z-CLV) max speed among with "JustLink" and "JustSpeed" technologies, using Ricoh's chipsets. The supported writing speeds are 4x, 8x, 12x, 16x (CLV), 24x, 32x and 40x (Z-CLV). The re-writing speeds 4x, 10x and 12x (CLV). The drive includes 8MB of buffer and supports all available writing modes (TAO, SAO, DAO, Multisession and Packet Writing). There is no support for Mt. Rainier format even Samsung had announced it would be supported with this model :(.

- 40x Writing speed

In order to achieve the 40x writing speeds Samsung has chosen the Z-CLV writing technology. When a recorder uses the Zone CLV recording method, the CD is divided into zones from the inner to the outer side of the CD, and within each these zones the recording speed varies but it's always constant (CLV). The recording process starts from the beginning of the disc in a constant speed in the first zone. After a pre-defined time (when the next zone starts) the recording speed automatically elevates to a higher speed. At the speed switching point, the anti-buffer underrun technology (in our case JustLink) is used to assure the transition with no data loss or corruption.

Samsung starts writing at 16x in the lead-in area, shifts up to 20x at 4mins, shifts up to 24x at 12mins, shifts up to 32x at 30mins finally shifts up to 40x at 56mins and continues to write until the end of the disc at that speed. The drive's theoretical average writing speed is 29.84X making it slower than other 40x recorders.

- The package

The tested drive was the retail European package and included: the drive, a printed manual in 4 languages, 1 piece (40x certified) of Samsung 80min CD-R blank, 1 piece of Samsung 74min 4-10x High-Speed RW Blank, audio and IDE cables and mounting screws. The attached software was Ez CD Creator 5.1 Basic and Direct CD v5.1 (for packet writing use). There is also an alternative package with Nero and InCD as the attached software.

The front of the drive includes the "Samsung", "High-Speed RW" and the "RW40-12-40" logos, that show up the drive's features. You will also find only one small led, the eject button and the headphone input jack/volume selector. Both the led and the eject button are back lighted with a green colour:

In the backside of the drive we will find the usual connectors (IDE interface, power), the jumpers for making the drive Master/Slave, the SPDIF output connector and the analog/digital output connectors:

- Installation

The Samsung SW-240B was installed as a Master in the secondary IDE BUS. The drive worked in PIOMode4 mode and after booting, identified itself as the "Samsung CD-R/RW SW-240B". Under WinXP, DMA was activated automatically.

The drive was a May 2002 model with firmware revision vR401 installed. Using Samsung's Live Firmware updater we upgraded the drive to vR402 that was used for all recording/reading tests. The drive includes "JustSpeed" recording technology that can be de-activated in order to get the full recording speed of the drive.