I bought and set up a LiteOn 1693S over the weekend. I killed my previous optical drive, a Samsung CD-RW, by mounting it vertically in my Micro-ATX casing. It slowly broke down. This new drive is rated for vertical operation. The primary use is to free up space in my hard drive, backups, and to prepare for a possible Linux reinstallation.
Here’s a full review with tests.
I tried it with various CD-R King media and cdrecord on Linux. It burned and verified perfectly with RiData 8X DVD+R (PhP 25), and a generic “OQ” 4X DVD+R (PhP 9). It was able to burn on generic blue-colored PhP6 DVD+R and DVD-R media, but it was unable to read.
I tried a purple-colored 4X DVD+RW (PhP12). This one failed to start burning on cdrecord, so I tried it under Windows with the bundled Nero Express OEM. Success. Next I’m going to try the RiData DVD+RW (PhP 50) which I didn’t buy for this run, so I could isolate the problem. It’s not a big issue if I can’t get it to work under Linux since I don’t plan on using Rewriteable media.
It would be fun to get 16X media to see the full speed of the drive, but that’s not readily available. The closest is PhP30 12X media which I plan to get from a TipidPC seller. Another expensive experiment is to try Dual Layer. This is the format used by original DVDs with 9GB worth of data for multiple formats. This sells at PhP400 up. For now, its only practical use is to back up original DVDs. Perhaps in the months to come this will go mainstream as more manufacturing plants are upgraded – unless the Blu-Ray format at 25 GB per disc changes the market.
