Toshiba Corporation yesterday announced that it has reinforced its leadership in advanced optical-disc drives with two new drives: a slim combination drive integrating CD-R/RW and DVD-ROM functions and a slim DVD-ROM drive. Both drives are only 12.7mm in height, ideally suited for integration in portable PCs, and set new benchmarks for high performance optical storage. The SD-R2212 slim combination drive offers high performance specifications in maximum write and read speeds: a 16x write speed for CD-R; a 10x write speed for CD-RW; an 8x read speed for DVD-ROM and a 24x read speed for CD-ROM. The SD-R2212 also achieves stable, high-speed data write by integrating a Buffer Under Run Error Protection to prevent write error.

The new slim DVD-ROM drive, SD-C2612, achieves a maximum 8x read speed for DVD-ROM and a maximum 24x read speed for CD-ROM.

Both drives meet the DVD Multi Drive (Ready-Only) and can read DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM, DVD-R and DVD-RW. They weigh only 200g and, in line with Toshiba's moves to reinforce respect for the environment and reduce environmental loads, use lead-free solder in their PCBs.

Mass production will start at the beginning of April.