:. Introduction .:

I still remember when I was burning CDR's at 4x speed. That was about three years ago, which isn't long at all. It took me about 30 minutes to burn a 700MB CD. Now, with the speed of 40x, I can burn a 700MB CD in 3 minutes!

Companies are trying to achieve this kind of speed and some aren't thinking first. There are a lot of manufacturers making these fast CDRW drives that are even faster than this Samsung. However, these companies are just in this market to make a quick buck. That is why the burners they make have all these great speeds but they lack quality and, most importantly, the 2 MB buffer they include with them will leave you with a lot of CD coasters.

Then there is Samsung, who have been in the game for a very long time now. With this burner they don't skimp out. The 8 MB Buffer, the 40x12x40 speed, the software bundle, and the high quality of the unit will not disappoint. As soon as I opened the box, nothing was missing, the instructions were very detailed, and everything was packaged so the unit would not be damaged during shipping.

:. Specifications .:

System Requirements:

• Pentium II 350 MHz or above
• Free CD-ROM Bay / E-IDE
• Windows 95/98/NT 4.0/ME/2000/XP
• 64MB RAM or above
• Should have a minimum of 700MB disk space

:. What's inside the box .:

• CD-RW Drive
• 1 Blank CD-R Disc (40X)
• 1 Blank CD-RW Disc (12X)
• Audio Cable
• Interface Cable
• 4 Mounting Screws
• Instruction Booklet
• Software Bundle

:. Samsung SW-240 40x12x40x CD-RW .:

As I opened the package, I saw the burner in a blue anti-static bag. Once I had it unwrapped it, I noticed that Samsung had drifted away from the standard "open" button. They made the button a nice clear plastic, adding a bit more detail that I really like to see.

Well, right after I opened it, I stuck it into my PC. Once everything was connected I booted up my PC and installed the Nero Burning Rom software that is bundled with it. I was curious how the drive itself would open. Some open slow, some open loud, and other just don't open ;-). I found that this drive opens the fastest and in the most quiet way as compared to all my other CD Roms. But enough about the small details, let's talk about some of the more important aspects of this Drive.

Samsung includes 8MB of Buffer memory and 1MB of Flash. This combination allows the drive to burn CDs at 40X without any buffer errors. JustLink has provided this drive with the buffer under run protection. Samsung adopted the technology to prevent under run errors unlike other manufacturers that don't seem to get the picture.

Also, Samsung chose to bundle the burner with Ahead Software. The makers of Nero Burning Rom 5.5, Ahead software has been in the CD-RW software game since it started and they are the leaders because of the features they pack into their software.

One thing that really is different about this drive is the fact that it makes hardly any noise! I always hated listening to a CD-Rom start up and leave you listening to a high-pitched noise. There was non of that in this drive and this didn't happen by luck: Samsung adopted a new technology for this.

Select Page Introduction Benchmarks Conclusion