Hey guys, I'm a newbie but I go on and read reviews and tips on this site all the time but I have recently come across an issue I cannot solve alone! I just recently purchased an external DVD+-RW drive (Sony DRX-84OU) and that ended up being a disaster. It seems like you get a lot more bang for your buck popping an internal drive in an enclosure. So I have read up and I was wondering what you guys recommend, here are my top choices...

-Samsung SH-S203B w/ Galaxy Metal Gear 5205AUAS enclosure
-Pioneer DVR-215D w/ (above enclosure or another?perhaps this one http://www.cooldrives.com/5exfienalcdd.html)
-Or rock Pioneer 115D with any enclosure with an oxford chipset

Im leaning towards the 215d and the cooldrives enclosure

I couldnt find any threads talking about putting the DVR-215D into an enclosure so let me know your thoughts... Thanks!


HP DV9000z
Vista Home Premium 32
AMD TL-64 2.2GHz
Current Drive: Toshiba TS-L802A

Welcome to CDF's:

I have an older Galaxy Metal Gear 5202AUAS enclosure with a Sammy S203B in it and it works great using the eSATA side. I also have an eSATA PCMCIA card for my older lappy and get 20x burns with it also. I have a 203B internal and with my other one in the 5202AUAS using eSATA it performs just as good as internal.

I have a Pioneer 215 but i haven't installed it in my 5202AUAS but i'm sure it will perform just as good.

Both Sammy 203B and Pioneer 215 are very good burners. Kind of a toss up really. The Sammy is a good CD-R burner also i hear but i use my Plextor Premiums for CD-R's.

Just to mention and not confuse you but the Sammy 223F is available at Newegg if your in the USA. It's a 22x burner and not many people have them yet.

Edit:
I haven't used the USB side on the 5202AUAS so at this time i cannot tell you much.

Thanks Bob!

Does the DVR-215 fit in the Galaxy enclosure? I have been reading that some longer drives don't and I wasn't sure how big it was...

Also I will be using it mostly for DVD-R, with CD-R and DL discs occasionally...

As far as reliability goes, do most on here recommend Pioneer or Sammy?

I just looked and the Pioneer 215 is about a quarter inch longer than my Sammy 203B so yes i'd say it will fit ok. I opened my Galaxy Metal Gear 5202AUAS enclosure up to make sure.

From reading the reviews here at CDF's they both burn CD's,DVD's, and DL's very good. I use only Verbatim DL's made in Singapore and have had good burns with both drives.

Yes Pioneer and Sammy's are recommended. At least the newer models. Pioneer PATA and SATA x15's are good to go but the Sammy PATA 20x drives are not as good as the 20x SATA Sammys. But that's my opinion.

What media/MID do you use most? MID=Media ID.

Here's a link to how we members voted on drives last time > http://club.cdfreaks.com/f61/top-5-o...te-now-241802/

Thanks for all of your help Bob...

I have been using 4x Verbatim DVD-Rs (the ones made in Taiwan) and all of my coaster were user or drive error, the discs were perfect. Once I run out though I am lookin at TY or Verbatim 16x's...

Also, do you know if the 215 or 203b are having any problems with Vista. I was reading some reviews and it seemed like the 115D was...

wow those are older medias. Actually they are a collectors gold mine not sure if i would burn a lot of them.

Are you wanting to just burn at 20x all the time? Most of the time we just burn that fast to see how well certain medias will burn at 20x for testing purposes and not really use that speed for keepers so to speak.

Looks like you have been reading about good media and yes TY and Verbatim seem to be the best.

I haven't really noticed anyone having problems with those two drives and Vi$ta to answer your other post.

Edit:
The only problem some people are having are with the SATA controllers on certain mobo's but if your going with an external drive and a lappy i'd say your safe.

Bob, I think I am going to go with the Dvr-215 and the galaxy enclosure... What do you mean they are older media? What speed do you recommend burning for best quality, I have heard a lot of 16x discs at 8x for the best quality. I have been using the 4x verbatims and nothing seems to fail, plus they are cheaper than TY on newegg, so why not stick with what works? Is there anything cheaper thats just as good?

Thanks a ton for all of your help!

Good choice. As far as the media goes 4x Verbatim is hard to find unless your talking about DL's. I thought you were talking about single layer 4x Verbatim.

I buy my TY blanks from www.rima.com they have the real deal and i don't like to have to return media if it's not what i ordered. They also have Verbatim. TY made in Japan are the best i think and i use 8x TY's. Mainly +R TY 8x which are T02 mids. Verbatim for single layer i buy in stores and look for made in Taiwan on the labels and i don't buy the made in India ones. Verbatim DL's i buy at stores and only buy the made in Singapore.

There is a lot of info here on media in the Media forum and for good deals people post in the Bargain Basement forum here.

Yes if you can keep getting the same good media that works great then keep buying it. Hope this helps.

Thanks a lot Bob. I was getting the 4x single layers from Meritline, they seem to have pretty good prices, TYs are actually a tiny bit cheaper than Verbatims there which is nice.

Thanks for all of your help again and good burning!

By the way, your "build" is ridiculous. Absolutely incredible!

Thank you. I like it

Out of curiousity, what exactly do you do with that monstrosity of awesomeness?

It's just my everyday pc. My old build held 3 DVD drives and i was always switching out drives. So i built this one so i don't have to do that much any more. There really isn't one drive that does everything. I used to quality scan my burns and still do some so i use one for ripping,one for scanning etc....a lot of us here have many drives for that purpose. It's just a fun hobby for me.

It is rather addicting, I can see where you all get it from...
I just enjoy researching everything there is such a wealth of knowledge available here.

Hi,
1.I just bought a Samsung SH-S203B for my desktop pc. Unfortunately the computer died after a couple days of having the burner. Now I'd love to use the Sammy with my notebook.
It is supposed to be connected by esata (through a express card). BUT, there is no Galaxy enclosure available in Germany. Do you have any other good recommendations?
2. My Dad wants to use my old BenQ DW1655. Connection can be USB or esata. Which enclosure should i be buying?
Thanks for your advices

There are not many SATA 5.25" enclosures out there right now, the issue is the chipset also in those enclosures. I had a pioneer with the Galaxy enclosure and it never worked. Now the Sammy works great. You may wanna try directron.com, they have some enclosures there, not sure what is available there. Can you get newegg to ship to Germany or no?

Newegg only seems to ship to USA and Puerto Rico according to their site.

I'm after the same thing; a DVR-215D(BK) SATA burner together with an external enclosure with both eSATA and USB2.0.

I'm in Sweden so I don't have so many options. The idea was to use it with a ps3 (USB2.0) and a computer with eSATA (for now I have to use USB on that one cause there is a driver problem with SATA ODD's I'm sorting out).

That Galaxy case looks really good but if it really doesn't work with Pioneer I'll have to skip that because I'm interested in a DVR-215DBK.

I only know about Ebay because I use it a lot but It's very difficult to know what works and what doesn't and and from my experience there is a lot of crap on Ebay.

These are the ones I've checked out and ship to Sweden:

http://cgi.ebay.com/5-25-SATA-HDD-DV...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-SAT5210U2E-I...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-SAT3510U2REM...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/ALUMINUM-5-25-DV...QQcmdZViewItem


These seem to be identical to two of the ones above but It's a different store:

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-STARTECH-SAT...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-STARTECH-SAT...QQcmdZViewItem

Well, I guess I'll be looking for a enclosure without a connector for SATA , just one for the power.
I got this card (http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...duct_Id=278303) so I can directly connect the card with the drive. The only problem is, that there is no power to get ths Sammy going.
Well see how I can get this going.