Samsung 40X/12X/40 (IDE) (Samsung-SW240BRA)

WHAT'S HOT: This model features a generous 8MB buffer; most CD-RW drives offer 2MB. A larger buffer could help minimize the drive's use of its buffer underrun protection--which in turn should produce a disc more quickly, and with fewer errors.

WHAT'S NOT: The drive had lackluster performance in our CD-R speed tests. It took 3 minutes, 32 seconds to write 650MB of files to a CD-R disc, which is nearly a full minute behind the fastest 48X drives (such as Pacific Digital's Mach 48) and 29 seconds slower than the fastest 40X drive we tested. (For perspective, the leading drive completed the same task in about 25 percent less time.) On our CD-ROM read speed tests, the drive finished near the bottom of the ranks, coming in next-to-last on our digital audio extraction test, with the leader, Sony's CRX195A1, beating it by 27 seconds (24 percent less time).

WHAT ELSE: The drive's CD-RW performance was relatively slow compared to other drives we've tested. It took 1 minute, 14 seconds to burn 100MB of files to CD-RW. The Mach 48, our leader was 8 seconds (11 percent) faster.

Samsung bundled Roxio's Easy CD Creator 5.1 and DirectCD 5.1 for CD mastering and packet-writing tasks. As with most drives, this model includes an audio cable to connect the sound card to other audio sources, plus an IDE cable.