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I just got my hands on a Samsung SW-252 which has a good software bundle, justlink burn protection and an 8MB buffer.

It's slower than the Liteon 52x drive in burn speeds and Nero CD speed. It's also pretty finicky about what media it uses.

What goes for the drive is that it has an 8MB buffer. It this some sort of an advantage? In what scenario would the 8MB buffer help?

I'm not an expert but my guess would be on less powerful PC's with slower data pipes it could prevent more buffer underruns...

An 8MB buffer is good for peace of mind mostly. Most people do not max out their buffer, but if you run a lot of CPU/hard drive intensive applications while burning, then the 8MB buffer will come in handy as you have a larger threshold before a buffer underrun occurs as opposed to a 2MB buffer.

With current buffer-under-run protections, the size of the buffer is irrelevant. At 40x plus speeds, either 2 MB or 8MB is gone in a heartbeat. The under-run protection will actually stop the drive while it waits for more data, so again the size of the buffer is not a factor. There may be a rare circumstance where it would make a difference, but I can't think of what it might be.

UALOneKPlus wrote:I'm not an expert but my guess would be on less powerful PC's with slower data pipes it could prevent more buffer underruns...

I'd say that's the only reason left for having such a large buffer.

I have the samsung 248f with 8mb buffer and i still get coasters. The 8mb buffer was one of the reasons I bought the drive, but now I see it wasn't worth it. It's a damn nice drive though.

But thats the thing thouh, why dont these manufacturers just make all drives with 8mb? I mean come on, how much does it cost for an extra 6mb of ram?? 2 cents?? Companies should just put the extra ram to satisfy us nagging custies, dont you think??

2 cents x 1 million drives

Do that math. That's $20,000 more in profit.

Ian wrote:2 cents x 1 million drives

Do that math. That's $20,000 more in profit.

The 8mb buffer probably is used my the marketing team to help market te drive against their competitors.

But by doing the math, companies can just charge 4 cents more for the 8mb drive, thus making a profit of 2 cents X 1 million drives = $20,000 !!

Who wouldnt be willing to pay 4 cents extra for 8mb of ram??

It's probably more than 2 cents.. but in the long run the 2MB buffer gives little to no advantage over an 8MB buffer for most consumers.

what I'd like to see is a drive with a 512MB buffer. Just a simple 512MB dimm soldered to the drive somewhere. I'd happily the extra cost on that one

imagine, 75% of the disc is loaded into the buffer for burning. The preburn would take a while, but once 25% of the burn is finished you can start playing first person shooters! LOL!

Why only 512? I say you get a 1GB Buffer. That would be nice, play games while burning with no problems.