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When I reviewed the Toshiba SD-R5372 back in April I was surprised that it turned out to be the fastest drive I had tested at the time. I therefore expected good things from the Toshiba SD-R5472 and I wasn’t disappointed. Toshiba has a strong history in DVD and was a major player in inception of the DVD Forum. Next year will see both Toshiba and NEC in the spotlight once more as the two major forces behind the HD-DVD format, while much of the remaining industry names have put their faith in Blu-ray.

But back to the issue at hand, the SD-R5472A. Like most drives these days – bar the Shuttle of course – the SD-R5472A is quite nondescript. The ivory fascia is quite barren apart from the eject button, indicator light and manual eject hole. The tray sports logos for DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW and CD-R/RW.

Specification wise, the Toshiba will write to DVD+R at 16x, DVD-R at 16x, DVD+RW at 8x, DVD-RW at 6x, DVD+R DL at 6x, DVD-R DL at 4x, CD-R at 48x and finally CD-RW at 32x. It’s worth remembering that the hardware specifications are ahead of the media, so that DVD+RW rating of 8x is a little moot right now, since 8x media still isn’t available.

The Toshiba performed very well, much like its predecessor. In fact if we leave the DVD-R dual layer tests out of the equation, the Toshiba is the fastest drive here. Unfortunately, when you take the DVD-R dual layer tests into account, the SD-R5472 is let down by its 4x performance – the NEC can burn DVD-R dual layer discs at 6x and that was enough to for the NEC to grab top spot over the Toshiba.

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