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Pass the Data and the Popcorn, Please

Combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW drives offer convenience, but Toshiba's entrant adds performance too.

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Back up your hard drive, play and record audio CDs, and watch movies using the same optical drive? That scenario was pure fantasy--until Ricoh released its MediaMaster MP9060A combination DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive a couple of months ago. Now, a second dose of reality has arrived in Toshiba's SD-R1002 combo drive, which pairs CD-Rewritable technology with DVD-ROM capabilities and is a more-than-worthy competitor for the Ricoh drive.

Like the Ricoh MP9060A, the SD-R1002 is rated to write CD-RWs at 4X and read CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs at up to 24X and 4X, respectively. The IDE SD-R1002 writes CD-Recordables at only 4X, compared with the MP9060A's 6X, but in nearly every other category, the new Toshiba drive outperforms its rival. As a matter of fact, the SD-R1002 reads media faster than do many 32X-rated CD-RW drives we've tested. The SD-R1002's $349 street price--$50 cheaper than Ricoh's MP9060A--is the clincher.

Economizing Resources

Why buy an all-in-one optical drive? Economy and performance aren't factors: You can get faster CD-R write and DVD-ROM/DVD-movie playback performance for a little less money by purchasing separate 8X/4X/32X CD-RW and 10X DVD-ROM drives (though no currently available DVD titles can take advantage of such performance). Saving a 5.25-inch drive bay and gaining pure convenience and simplicity are the only real reasons to consider a combo drive.

But those reasons might be enough, especially since the SD-R1002 arrived on the scene. With this drive, you also get superior all-around read performance. The drive installed Microsoft Office 2000 from CD-ROM in only 4 minutes, 3 seconds; read 430MB from a CD-R in 4 minutes, 21 seconds; read 100MB from a CD-RW in 1 minute, 35 seconds; and extracted a 250MB digital audio file in 2 minutes, 47 seconds. Those performance figures are comparable to what we've seen with CD-RW drives having maximum read speeds rated at 32X.

The drive's outstanding seek times are another reason to consider it. Testa Labs' CD Tach 98 benchmarking software measured random access at 75 milliseconds--faster than any CD-RW drive we've tested. Full-stroke access was 153 milliseconds, only 10 milliseconds slower than the fastest time we've seen by a CD-RW unit. And Testa Labs' DVD Tach 98 2.52 rated the SD-R1002's DVD-ROM read speed at 3.1X, which handily bests the Ricoh 9060a's 2.1X rating.

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