Toshiba SD-R5002 IDE DVD-R/RW - Page 1

- Introduction

Another member of the DVD-R/RW forum developed a DVD recording solution for your everyday storage needs. Toshiba announced "SD-R5002" back is September 2002 model, making its entrance at the DVD recording race. The drive's specs were almost identical with the Pioneer's DVR-A04, making the direct comparison at least interesting...

- Drive features

The supported writings speed for the DVD-R format are 1X, and 2X, and 1X for the DVD-RW. The maximum reading speed for DVD-ROM is 12X CAV for single layer and 8X CAV for dual layer discs.

As for the CD-R media, you can select among the 4X, 8X, 12X CLV and 16X Z-CLV writing speeds, and 4X, 10X CLV writing for CD-RW format. The CD-ROM/-R reading speed is 40X CAV and 20X for the HS-RW. Last, the 16X CAV speed is supported for the CD-DA (DAE) format.

The supported buffer underun system and the 2MB cache buffer will prevent any buffer underun problems in DVD-R/RW and CD-R/RW formats. The drive came with no region code selected, and the RPCII region control allows user to change the region code 5 times.

The supported disc formats are: DVD (single layer/dual layer), DVD-R (General in case of writing), DVD-RW (Ver 1.0& 1.1), CD-ROM Mode 1, CD-ROM XA Mode 2, Photo CD, CD-DA, CD-Extra, CD-R. The following writing formats are supported:

1) DVD-R: DAO, Incremental recording
2) DVD-RW: DAO, Incremental recording, Restricted overwriting
2) CD-R/RW: DAO, SAO, TAO Packet write

Lastly, below we can see the drive's supported reading/writing formats:

- The package

The retail kit contains the drive itself, the Intervideo WinDVD, DVD playback software, VOB Instant CD/DVD writer software, Pinnacle Studio 8SE video editing software, the necessary cables and leads. The media included are two Toshiba CD-R, one Toshiba CD-RW, one Verbatim DVD-RW, one Verbatim DVD-R. In the package you can also find a CD pen and a multilingual quick installation guide. The SD-R5002 retail kit is available from Toshiba Europe Storage Division distributors and dealers, or via the Toshiba website The retail price of the drive is 299~329 Euros, including tax.

On the disc loading tray there are the "DVD-R/RW" and the "HSRW" logos. The eject button is placed below the tray on the right side of the front panel, as usually. The indicator ( LED) indicates the drive status. The indicator is active while reading/writing, and blinks when an error has occurred. There is not any head-phone jack or volume control knob .

On the black-colored rear panel there are the usual connectors, such as the DC input, the ATAPI interface, the device configuration jumper, and the analog audio output.

After removing the scews on the bottom we can see the drive's internal design. TOSHIBA uses its own chipsets as the following picture shows (click for a high-res). We also noticed some OKI chipsets among with two un-known:

At the top of the board the codename of the drive is printed:

At the bottom the "SD-R1202" is printed meaning that both the SD-R5002 and the "SD-R1202" drives share the same front design

- Installation

The Toshiba drive was identified as "Toshiba SD-R5002" under WinXP. The drive was installed to the secondary IDE channel of our test PC as a "Master" and worked in Ultra DMA Mode 2 transfer mode. The September 2002 model came with firmware version 1030 installed.