Questions about Samsung SH-203 SATA DVD burner

[Phantom Of The Opera]

I’m considering buying this burner, and I’m wondering what the chances are that it’ll work with my motherboard (Intel DG33FB). This mobo has the ICH9 chipset -- no RAID support but just about the latest product released by Intel (I bought it a month ago).

I use the onboard SATA controller in IDE-compatibility mode (i.e. no AHCI). Right now the only SATA device I have is a hard drive, nothing else. I know that SATA optical drives have given many people compatibility problems, but I wonder if anyone has tried this particular combo (Samsung SH-203 and Intel ICH9/DG33FB).

I’ve already tried using PATA optical drives with a SATA/PATA bridge device, but they don’t work with the mobo, and they don’t work with my Adaptec PCI plug-in SATA adaptor either. I hate like hell to be restricted to using only PATA devices, since I have only one IDE port. Also, this Samsung drive got a great review on CDFreaks.

Any ideas, anyone? Should I take the risk and just go ahead and buy the drive?

[budz]

the intel mobo you have should be fine since you have the ICH9 chipset. it's mobo's that have VIA, NFORCE & JMICRON chipsets that have compatibility issues. i have 2 GIGABYTE mobo's w/the ICH9 chipsets and I have 2 SAMSUNG S203B dvd burners which work fine. it's my favorite dvd burner to use along w/MEDIA CODE SPEED EDIT & CoDEking's hacked firmware. even without the hacked firmware the drive is great and is currently the best dvd burner in the market right now.

as long as you use the IDE instead of AHCII you'll be fine.

[Phantom Of The Opera]

Thanks Budz. Much appreciated.

Re. the hacked firmware, what does it give you that the original doesn't?

[budz]

Thanks Budz. Much appreciated.

Re. the hacked firmware, what does it give you that the original doesn't?

your welx! the hacked firmware will allow faster burns and/or faster reading capability. it also will allow better burn strategy on cheaper dvd media like RITEK. take a look at that long thread at the SAMSUNG FORUM at cdfreaks.com. you'll see comments and scans that have been done with/without using the hacked firmware.

[Phantom Of The Opera]

Update:

Well, I got the Samsung and installed it last weekend. The bottom line: it works very well, and I'm glad I got it. Minor quibbles: it only burns my Verbatim DVD+R DL (MKM001) at 4X, instead of 8X as my Benq DW-1640 does. (I think the Pioneer 111D also does 8X, but I can't recall now). Anyway, that's a minor nit, and I can put up with it for now. The drive burns Verbatim DVD+R single-layer at full speed (16X) and also does CD-Rs well, so I'm happy.

For me, this exercise means two things: firstly, my ICH9 motherboard chipset works fine with SATA optical drives (in non-RAID mode), but not with 'bridge' devices (i.e. PATA drives with the converter device plugged in to the back); and secondly, all SATAs are not created equal -- obviously, true SATA devices work, converted SATA devices are very unreliable, at least with the Intel ICH9 (I don't know about non-Intel chipsets).

[budz]

Good to hear you're enjoying the SAMSUNG S203B drive.