The Toshiba SD-R5372's Increased DVD-R Speed Provides Users with Exceptional Performance for Easy DVD burning Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD), an industry pioneer in optical storage technology, today announced a free firmware upgrade for its SD-R5372 DVD recordable drive that will boost the DVD-R write speed to 16X. The SD-R5372, which debuted in October 2004, is the first DVD recordable drive developed by Toshiba Samsung Storage Technologies (TSST) to be distributed under the Toshiba brand name. With the free firmware upgrade, the SD-R5372 will now reach write speeds of 16X for both DVD-R and DVD+R and provides users with easy DVD creation.

The SD-R5372 also boasts the fastest DVD+R double-layer write speed available on the market today at 5X. The double-layer, dual-format drive gives consumers premium performance for video and data DVD creation. In addition, the double-layer media capability provides twice the storage capacity of a current DVD and 12 times the capacity of a CD at 8.5GB for a broad range of video, music, image and data storage applications.

"Consumers need high-performance optical storage solutions for managing music, video and other data-intensive content," said Maciek Brzeski, vice president of marketing at Toshiba SDD. "The firmware upgrade allows users to take an already robust optical storage device and turn it into the ultimate tool for creating DVDs quickly and easily."

The free firmware upgrade is available immediately to customers by visiting Toshiba at www.sddsupport.toshiba.com.