Refine search for Storage

  Leave a comment      Email this to a friend TrustedReviews Newsletters

Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge

The Sony drive stands out from the crowd for a number of reasons. First and foremost, this particular unit comes as a bare drive. That means that there is no retail box supplied and consequently no retail bundle. This makes things a little bit more difficult for a reviewer like myself since there is less to talk about. However, many buyers are happy with bare drives since they already have burning software and don’t need cables or blank media.

The second differentiation (from all the other units bar the TDK) is the colour. This drive is finished in matt black, which is why it’s a popular choice for system integrators since it matches the current crop of black cases. Recent machines from both Mesh and Evesham have sported this drive.

Finally, the drive itself is very short, making it an ideal choice for a small form factor system. In fact only the Teac drive shares the same dimensions – this probably means that they are the same physical drive underneath, although the performance results are quite different.

The front fascia of the drive is pretty minimalist, and it looks quite stylish – well as stylish as an optical drive can look I suppose. There’s a single eject button, an indicator light and a manual eject hole.

As far as specification goes, the Sony will burn DVD-R/+R discs at eight-speed, DVD-RW/+RW discs at four-speed, CD-R media at 40-speed and CD-RW discs at 24-speed. Unfortunately the Sony would not write at eight-speed to four-speed DVD-R media, so if you have a stockpile of four-speed DVD-R media you won’t get a performance boost with the Sony.

Performance results were a mixed bag. The Sony topped the charts on all the DVD+R tests, but then languished at the bottom by a wide margin for all the DVD-R tests. For both DVD-RW and DVD+RW the Sony was again near the bottom, although the margin of difference between the drives in these tests was quite small. However the Sony managed to redeem itself slightly in the CD-R tests where it found itself in the top two spots, but it dropped down near the bottom again when it came to CD-RW.

The DW-U18A was supplied by LowestOnWeb at a price of £74.99, which seems a little expensive in this company. That said, if you can find the drive cheaper anywhere else online, LowestOnWeb will match that price, providing the other supplier has stock of course. But even then, with the LG drive going for only £76.01 in full retail guise, it’s very hard to recommend the Sony.

Verdict

A reasonably DVD writer if your bias is towards DVD+R and CD-R media. If you have a black PC it might tempt you, but on the whole there are better drives available for around the same price.

Add your comment