ASUS SBC-04D1S-U USB 2.0 Blu-ray Combo Drive

Model: ASUS SBC-04D1S-U USB 2.0 Blu-ray Combo Drive
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer, Inc

ASUSTeK Computer is one of the world's leading computer component manufacturers. For nearly two decades, this Taiwanese company has lead the way, producing some of the industry's best motherboards, graphics cards and notebook computers. ASUS is no stranger to the optical storage industry either. Over the years, they've introduced a wide range of products for the portable and desktop markets. With their innovative technologies and impressive performance, these drives have been a hit with consumers right from the start.

Like most drive manufacturers, ASUS has begun to focus on the growing Blu-ray Disc market. The company recently introduced its first external slim BD combo drive, the SBC-04D1S-U. The stylish and compact drive is capable of 8x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 4x DVD±R DL and 5x DVD-RAM writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 8x. On top of that, it can read Blu-ray Discs at 4.8x. ASUS also designed the SBC-04D1S-U to be  powered completely off a computer's USB bus. Without the need for an AC power source, you can burn a DVD or watch a Blu-ray movie wherever you go.

This is just a sample of what Lite-On's new BD combo drive has to offer. Over the next few pages we'll take a look at the SBC-04D1S-U's features and then put it through its paces to see how it performs. Is the SBC-04D1S-U the best choice for the person on the go? Keep reading as we find out.

What's in the box?:

• ASUS SBC-04D1S-U USB 2.0 Blu-ray Combo Drive
• Quick Installation Guide
• Software CD
• Vertical Drive Stand
• USB Y Cable

Physical Features:

The drive ASUS sent us for this review was manufactured in May of 2009 and had firmware WR22. At the time of this review, this is the only firmware available for the SBC-04D1S-U.

The ASUS SBC-04D1S-U is one of the smallest Blu-ray combo drives on the market today. Measuring 157 x 142 x 21 mm, it's not much larger than a couple of jewel cases stacked on top of one another. The drive is also constructed of a lightweight, black plastic. The glossy finish looks nice, but it scratches easily and finger prints and smudges have a tendency to stand out.

Along with a small "ASUS" logo, the top of the SBC-04D1S-U has a large "X" shaped design which lights up a bright blue when the drive is powered on. The brightness of this light can be adjusted or turned off altogether using the included BluTuner utility. On the bottom of the drive you can see four small rubber feet as well as a rubber rectangle. The rectangle covers the open space where the stand attaches to the drive.

The LED and eject button are located along the front of the SBC-04D1S-U.  This LED lights up green when both reading and writing.

Along the rear, you can see the SBC-04D1S-U's USB 2.0 interface. This connector not only transfers data but provides power for the drive. To ensure that the SBC-04D1S-U gets the power it needs, ASUS includes a special USB cable that plugs into two ports on your computer.

Technical Specs:

Most of the specs below have been taken from ASUS's website and the manual that came with the drive.

By looking at the picture below, you can see that ASUS's new DVD writer is identified as an "ASUS SBC-04D1S-U."

Nero also shows that the SBC-04D1S-U has a maximum CD writing speed of 24x and a 4096KB buffer. This buffer is also backed up by ASUS's FlextraLink technology. According to Nero, the SBC-04D1S-U can also write CD-Text and overburn. When testing the drive's capacity I found that the drive was able to overburn up to 95:10 with CompUSA's 99 minute CD-R media. 

Using Alex Noe's Weak Sector Utility we were able to determine that the SBC-04D1S-U is a "two sheep" burner and is capable of backing titles protected by SafeDisc 2.90. Like most drives, it did not pass the "three sheep" test.

Here is a screen shot from Erik Deppe's Opti Drive Control. Among other things, this program queries the drive to see what its reading and writing capabilities are. Opti Drive Control had no problems detecting the SBC-04D1S-U's reading and writing speeds, supported disc types and 4MB buffer.

Opti Drive Control also shows that the SBC-04D1S-U is an RPC-2 DVD drive. This means that the drive's region is stored in the firmware.  The drive's region can be changed five times and after that it cannot be changed anymore. Unfortunately, a patched RPC-1 firmware is not yet available for this drive.

While Opti Drive Control gives us a quick glance at the SBC-04D1S-U's features, DVDINFOpro provides a little more information on some of the drive's reading and writing capabilities.  By looking at the screenshot above you can see that while ASUS's new drive can read and write to most DVD formats and read back BD-R, BD-RE and BD-ROM discs.

The SBC-04D1S-U doesn't let you set the book type of single layer DVD+R or DVD+RW media. However, the drive automatically sets the book type for DVD+R DL discs to "DVD-ROM". This greatly reduces compatibility problems, especially with older DVD players.

For the SBC-04D1S-U's software bundle, ASUS has turned to CyberLink. The CD that comes with the drive contains a stripped down version of the CyberLink DVD Suite which includes Power2Go, PowerBackup, InstantBurn and PowerDVD.

CyberLink Power2Go 6 LE - Power2Go is the main disc burning program included with the SBC-04D1S-U. With this software, users can create their own CD's and DVD's, copy and erase discs and rip audio CD's to WMA or WAV files. Power2Go also offers enhanced security features, allowing you to password protect and encrypt the files on your discs.

CyberLink PowerBackup 2 - If you're looking for a quick and easy way to backup your data, PowerBackup is the answer. Depending on your needs, PowerBackup can do full, differential, and incremental backups as well as fast stream-to-disc archiving.

Backup jobs can be scheduled to run at regular intervals so the data is always protected. PowerBackup also offers more advanced features like file filtering, compression and password protection.

CyberLink InstantBurn 5 - InstantBurn is CyberLink's packet writing software. Like Roxio's Drag-to-Disc or Nero's InCD, it allows you to use your CD, DVD or BD writer as if it was another hard drive or a huge floppy disk. Once formatted, you can cut, copy, and paste or rename files and folders on a CD-RW, DVD±RW or BD-RE disc.

CyberLink PowerDVD 7.3 - CyberLink's PowerDVD is one of the more popular software DVD players on the market right now. Along with support for DVD's, it can be used to play back Blu-ray Discs and other high-def formats including H.264, HD MPEG-2, and WMV-HD. With its support for BD-Live, PowerDVD also gives you the ability to access additional content via the Internet.

Unfortunately, the version of PowerDVD bundled with the SBC-04D1S-U only supports 2 speaker output. If you want to take advantage of movies encoded with Dolby Digital or DTS, you'll need to buy the retail version of PowerDVD Ultra.

While small in size, ASUS's Blu-ray combo delivers a good number of features. Along with a great looking design, the SBC-04D1S-U offers some of the fastest reading and writing speeds available on a portable unit. The drive is capable of 8x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 6x DVD±R DL and 5x DVD-RAM writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 8x. More importantly, it can read Blu-ray Discs at speeds as high as 4.8x. The SBC-04D1S-U also includes features like a 4MB buffer, bus-powered USB 2.0 interface and a software bundled from CyberLink, but lacks bitsetting support for single layer DVD+R and DVD+RW media. Even then, the ASUS SBC-04D1S-U scores a solid 9 out of 10 for its features.

ASUS's portable Blu-ray combo drive was very easy to install. Thanks to its USB 2.0 interface, the entire installation process took only a matter of minutes.  With no jumpers to worry about, it was as simple as connecting the USB cable. Once connected to our test computer, it took only a matter of seconds for plug and play to install the necessary drivers. After making sure that the drive was recognized correctly in the Device Manager, I was ready to start installing the software.

Software Installation:

As you can see, this menu is pretty straight forward. To start the setup process, simply click on the "Install Now" button. After selecting your preferred language and entering your customer information, you'll be presented with a list of components to choose from.

From here you can choose to install InstantBurn, Power2Go, PowerBackup or PowerDVD. To complete the installation, select the components you want and click next a few more times. Once the files are copied over, you can start burning your own discs.

The Documentation:

The SDRW-08D1S-U doesn't offer much in the way of documentation.  The closest thing to a manual is the drive's "Quick Installation Guide". This small, fold out guide is broken up into 33 different languages with everything but English getting less than half a page worth of instructions. As you can imagine, the instructions are very brief. Thankfully, there are also a few small diagrams showing how to hook the drive up to your computer and attach the included stand. If you're looking for things like the SDRW-08D1S-U's specs or system requirements, you'll have to check the back of the box or visit ASUS's website. You won't find that information in the guide.

In the end, installing the SDRW-08D1S-U was very easy. I had no problems getting the drive or the software installed and working. The documentation included with the drive is brief, but should be enough to get the drive up and running. Nevertheless, I still would have liked to have seen a little more drive specific information. With this in mind, I give the installation an 8 out of a possible 10.

While CPU, memory, OS and other variables don't often make a huge difference, there are some nonetheless. We have a computer that is used only for testing hardware. We do this so all tests can be compared reliably.

Test System:

For Blu-ray Disc Combo drives, the performance tests are normally broken down into five sections: CD read, CD write, DVD read, DVD write and BD read. Each benchmark test has been run three times. The score given is an average of the three. DMA has been enabled in device manager for all IDE devices supporting it.

CD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the CD-ROM benchmarks, CD WinBench 99 v3.0 and CD Speed v4.7.7.16 are used to test read speeds, seek times and CPU usage. For DAE testing, CD Speed is used to give an overall speed rating.

CD Write Tests: To test the write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 650MB and 700MB to our test media. Times are recorded. To test rewrite scores, Nero is used again to time how long it takes to write 400MB of random files and directories. Then Roxio's Drag-to-Disc is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

DVD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the DVD benchmarks CD Speed v4.7.7.16 is used to test read speeds, seek times, and CPU usage.

DVD Write Tests: To test the DVD write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write a 4.38GB image to our test media. Times are recorded. Then Roxio's Drag-to-Disc is used to test packet writing speeds. For this, 4GB of random files and directories are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

BD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the BD benchmarks, CD Speed v4.7.7.16 is used to test read speeds, seek times, and CPU usage.

CD Winbench 99 Scores:

The CD Winbench test is as close as we can get to testing every day usage. It fires off eight different applications using scripts. This tries to mimic the activities of a person loading these programs onto their own computer.

ASUS's portable Blu-ray combo drive gave us some mixed performance in our CD Winbench tests. In the transfer speed tests, the drive started reading at about 11.5x on the inside of the CD and was able to reach 23.2x on the outside of the disc. While this is pretty decent for a drive with a maximum read speed of 24x, the SBC-04D1S-U's access times and overall scores were not as good as some of the other portable drives we've looked at.

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used a pressed CD containing one Mode 1 data track. The disc is 74:38 in size and is full of data and directories.

 

The SBC-04D1S-U performed a little better in our CD Speed tests. The drive started reading at 10.54x and reached a maximum transfer speed of 24.14x. Unfortunately, its seek times were higher than we'd like to see.

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - CD-R Media:

For this test I made a copy of our pressed test CD. I used 12x rated Memorex Gold 74 minute media for the tests.

 

The SBC-04D1S-U was a little faster when reading CD-R media. Thanks to this small speed boost, it had no problems reaching a maximum transfer speed of 24.48x in our tests.

ASUS's portable DVD writer had no problems recognizing our 99 minute CompUSA media. The SBC-04D1S-U read our test disc from start to finish, reaching a maximum transfer speed of 25.14x.

 

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - CD-RW Media:

For this test I made a copy of a pressed test CD. I used some PNY 80 minute CD-RW media for the tests.

 

The SBC-04D1S-U also reads CD-RW media at 24x. As you can see, the drive came very close to reaching this speed in our tests.

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 (DAE) - Pressed CD:

For this test I used Pure Funk. The CD is almost exactly 74 minutes. This helps to squeeze the maximum performance out of the CD.

Exact Audio Copy can tell us a lot about a drive's capabilities. You can see from the screen shot that while the ASUS SBC-04D1S-U supports accurate stream and has the ability to retrieve C2 error information from the CD, it does not cache audio data.

 

For a portable drive, the SBC-04D1S-U did fairly well in our DAE tests. The drive started out at 8.96x and reached a maximum speed of 20.19x.

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 (DAE) - CD-R Media:

For this test I used a copy of the Pure Funk CD. It's burned onto the same Memorex Gold 74 minute media I used in the CD Speed tests.

The SBC-04D1S-U was a little slower when extracting audio from CD-R media. This time around, it reached a maximum DAE speed of 19.96x. So how did it do in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

ASUS's portable Blu-ray combo drive completed CD Speed's advanced DAE tests with an average score of 14.39x. While the drive was able to go through the tests without creating any errors, it was unable to pass all of the on the fly copying tests. If you look at the advanced features, you can see that the SBC-04D1S-U was able to read the CD-Text, subchannel data and lead in, but failed to read the lead out section of the CD.

To see how well the SBC-04D1S-U can read scratched and dirty discs, I used CD Speed's ScanDisc utility to see how many sectors were damaged or unreadable. This is a very rough, but good way to test the drive's error correcting abilities.

CD Speed - ScanDisc

The red dots in the screenshot above should tip you off that the SBC-04D1S-U did not do very well here. The drive not only considered 66% of the CD to be "damaged", there were a small number of bad, or unreadable, sectors.

You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.  

Here too, the SBC-04D1S-U ran into some problems. Part way through the fourth track, CD DAE returned the error you see above.

CD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 9.4.26.0 and Drag-to-Disc 9.0:

For this test I randomly generated 700MB of files and directories to test the time it takes the drive to write and close a CD. All of the files are between 1MB and 25MB in size and no more than 10 directories deep. All of the times below include not only the actual writing time, but the lead in and out times too. This gives a more realistic idea of how long it takes to write a CD.

The SBC-04D1S-U has a maximum CD writing speed of 24x. To reach this speed, it uses Z-CLV, or Zone CLV. By looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the drive uses a total of five "zones." The SBC-04D1S-U starts writing at 10x and quickly jumps to 12x at the 4 minute mark. When it reaches the 18 minute mark, the drive changes to 16x and then to 20x at the 36 minute mark. The drive writes at this speed until about the 56 minute mark. When it reaches this point, its writing speed increases to 24x and stays there until the end of the session.

To test the drive's writing times,  I wrote our test data to some Taiyo Yuden media rated at 52x. The results are below.

The SBC-04D1S-U took about 5:38 to write an entire 701MB CD. While most of the internal writers we've looked at lately can do this in half the time, this is pretty good for a portable drive.

To test the drive's writing quality I used Lite-On IT's KProbe2. Written by Karr Wang, this utility can be used to test the number of C1 and C2 errors on a disc. For these tests I used a Lite-On LTR-52327S (firmware QS09) and read the discs at 32x. 

Moser Baer 52x

Taiyo Yuden 52x

Verbatim 52x

The SBC-04D1S-U's writing quality was very good. By looking at the KProbe screenshots, you can see that the discs burned by the drive had a low number of C1 errors. More importantly, there were no C2 errors at all. 

For the rewriting tests I created 400MB of files on the hard drive and wrote them in DAO mode using Nero. To test the packet writing speeds I copied and pasted the same files off the hard drive onto a CD-RW disc using Drag-to-Disc from Roxio. Verbatim's 24x Ultra Speed CD-RW media was used for these tests.

The SBC-04D1S-U also uses Z-CLV when rewriting at 16x. The drive starts writing at 10x and jumps to 16x at about the 18 minute mark. 

ASUS's portable DVD writer did fairly well in our rewriting tests. The drive took 4:03 to write 400MB with Nero and 4:18 to do the same with Drag-to-Disc. Erasing wasn't a problem for the SBC-04D1S-U either. In our tests, it took 27 seconds to do a quick erase and 5:56 to fully erase the disc.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - DVD-ROM:

For this test I used a single layer, single sided data DVD-ROM disc that is 4.37GB in size.

 

The SBC-04D1S-U performed relatively well when reading single layer DVD-ROM's. In our tests it started reading at 3.36x and reached a maximum transfer speed of about 8.09x. Unfortunately, like in our CD read tests, the drive's seek times were pretty high.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM:

First, we'll look at the drive's DVD-R and DVD-RW reading performance. For this I made copies of our DVD-ROM test disc using some general use 8x DVD-R and 6x DVD-RW media from Verbatim and then ran our usual DVD read tests with CD Speed. For the DVD-RAM tests, media from Maxell was used. The results are below.

Verbatim DVD-R
 

	Transfer Speed			Seek Times			CPU Usage
	Average	Start	End	Random	1/3	Full	1x	2x	4x	8x
ASUS SBC-04D1S-U	6.12x	3.40x	8.18x	154ms	194ms	316ms	7%	12%	21%	52%

Verbatim DVD-RW

	Transfer Speed			Seek Times			CPU Usage
	Average	Start	End	Random	1/3	Full	1x	2x	4x	8x
ASUS SBC-04D1S-U	6.13x	3.39x	8.20x	152ms	198ms	324ms	7%	12%	21%	52%

Verbatim DVD-R DL
 

	Transfer Speed			Seek Times			CPU Usage
	Average	Start	End	Random	1/3	Full	1x	2x	4x	8x
ASUS SBC-04D1S-U	4.61x	2.57x	6.15x	166ms	211ms	347ms	6%	15%	n/a	n/a

The SBC-04D1S-U had no problems reading DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-R DL media. In our tests, the drive was able to read DVD-R and DVD-RW media at 8x, but slowed to 6x when reading DVD-R DL discs.

Maxell 5x DVD-RAM
 

	Transfer Speed			Seek Times			CPU Usage
	Average	Start	End	Random	1/3	Full	1x	2x	4x	8x
ASUS SBC-04D1S-U	4.57x	2.24x	5.09x	176ms	207ms	324ms	26%	36%	57%	n/a

ASUS's new drive has a maximum transfer speed of 5x when reading DVD-RAM discs. By looking at the screenshot you can see that it starts reading at about 2.2x and then accelerates, reaching 5x at about the 1.7GB mark. 

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - DVD+R and DVD+RW:

Next we'll look at the drive's DVD+R and DVD+RW reading performance. For this I made a copy of our DVD-ROM test disc using some 8x DVD+R and 8x DVD+RW media from Verbatim. I then ran our usual DVD read tests with CD Speed. The results are below.

Verbatim DVD+R
 

	Transfer Speed			Seek Times			CPU Usage
	Average	Start	End	Random	1/3	Full	1x	2x	4x	8x
ASUS SBC-04D1S-U	6.13x	3.39x	8.19x	153ms	197ms	326ms	7%	12%	21%	52%

Verbatim DVD+RW

	Transfer Speed			Seek Times			CPU Usage
	Average	Start	End	Random	1/3	Full	1x	2x	4x	8x
ASUS SBC-04D1S-U	6.14x	3.41x	8.21x	152ms	187ms	307ms	7%	12%	21%	52%

Verbatim DVD+R DL

The SBC-04D1S-U's performance was very similar to what we saw with DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-R DL media. The drive read DVD+R and DVD+RW media at 8x and DVD+R DL discs at 6x.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - DVD-Video:

For these tests I am using the US version of Transformers: The Movie on DVD. The disc is over 4GB and single sided.

 

	Transfer Speed			Seek Times			CPU Usage
	Average	Start	End	Random	1/3	Full	1x	2x	4x	8x
ASUS SBC-04D1S-U	3.03x	1.67x	4.05x	170ms	215ms	343ms	7%	12%	23%	n/a

The SBC-04D1S-U wasn't nearly as fast when reading DVD videos. In our tests, it reached a maximum speed of only 4x when reading both single and dual layer discs.

To see how well the SBC-04D1S-U worked as a DVD player, I watched a few scenes from Transformers: The Movie and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith using Nero Showtime. The drive had no problems playing back these movies and was fairly quiet.

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 9.4.26.0 and Drag-to-Disc 9.0:

To test the DVD writing performance of ASUS's new drive I used Verbatim 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R, 6x DVD-RW and 8x DVD+RW media. To get the writing times, a 4.38GB image was burned to our test discs using Nero.

When writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 8x, the SBC-04D1S-U uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that ASUS's new drive starts writing at about 3.4x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The SBC-04D1S-U also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. In both cases, the drive uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum writing speed.

The SBC-04D1S-U performed as expected in our DVD writing tests. While not as fast as some of the internal DVD writers we've looked at recently, it turned in some respectable times with DVD±R and DVD±RW media.

To check the media compatibility of the SBC-04D1S-U, I ran a few tests using some of the media available in my area. The media types, along with the average time it took the drive to write our 4.38GB image, are listed below.

So what about writing quality? Thanks to KProbe, we can test a disc's PI (Parity Inner) and PIF (Parity Inner Fail) rates. For these tests I used a Lite-On SHM-165H6S (firmware HS0E) and read the discs at 4x with the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8 and 1 respectively. For comparison, I also tested the discs on a BenQ DW1640. When combined with Nero CD Speed, the DW1640 is able to report PI Errors, PI Failures, Parity Outer Failures and even jitter levels. For this test, the discs are read at 8x with both the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8.

So what are "good" results supposed to look like? With KProbe, the PI errors should not exceed 280 and the number of PIF errors should stay below 4. When testing with CD Speed, the number of PI errors should stay below 280 as well. However, because it scans with an ECC sum of 8, a higher number of PIF errors is acceptable, as long as they do not exceed 32. Since POF errors are uncorrectable, we really don't want to see any of them at all.

I also put these discs through a "stress test" by reading them back at 16x with the DW1640. By reading these discs back at this speed, we can see if there are any readability issues caused by the number of errors or high levels of jitter. 

The SBC-04D1S-U's writing quality was pretty good with most of the DVD+R media we tested. Aside from a few small spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits.

Lastly, here are some results from our DVD-R test media. While the writing quality varied from one manufacturer to another, the results were fairly good for the most part.

To test the SBC-04D1S-U's packet writing performance I used Drag-to-Disc 9.0. Verbatim 6x DVD-RW, Verbatim 8x DVD+RW and Maxell 5x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 9.4.26.0:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the SBC-04D1S-U, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from Verbatim and Memorex. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

The SBC-04D1S-U performed relatively well when writing to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media. Thanks to its 6x writing speed, the drive took 26:56 to write 8001MB of data to DVD+R DL media and 28:19 to do the same with DVD-R DL discs. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was pretty good with Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL media.. Aside from a few isolated spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits. Unfortunately, the results weren't as good with Verbatim's 8x DVD-R DL and Memorex's 8x DVD+R DL media. When tested with CD Speed, the error rates were a bit high through some sections of the discs.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - BD-ROM:

To test the SBC-04D1S-U's BD-ROM reading performance, I used the Blu-ray Disc version of The Fifth Element. This single layer disc is about 23GB in size.

 

	Transfer Speed			Seek Times			CPU Usage
	Average	Start	End	Random	1/3	Full	1x	2x	4x	8x
ASUS SBC-04D1S-U	3.65x	2.03x	4.88x	104ms	223ms	350ms	0%	1%	3%	7%

The SBC-04DIS-U performed relatively well when reading single layer BD-ROM discs. In our tests, it started reading at 2.03x and reached a maximum transfer speed of 4.88x.

ASUS's BD combo drive had no problems playing back The Fifth Element and The Simpsons Movie using the bundled version of PowerDVD. Just keep in mind that if your monitor is connected to your video card using DVI or HDMI, both need to be HDCP compliant to play AACS protected titles. If not, you can still play them by switching the connection to VGA or using software like Slysoft's AnyDVD HD.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - BD-R and BD-RE:

Next we'll look at the drive's BD-R and BD-RE reading performance. For this I created a few data discs using single layer BD-R and BD-RE media from Memorex and Panasonic and then ran our BD read tests with CD Speed.

Memorex BD-R
 

	Transfer Speed			Seek Times			CPU Usage
	Average	Start	End	Random	1/3	Full	1x	2x	4x	8x
ASUS SBC-04D1S-U	3.67x	2.08x	4.87x	128ms	253ms	374ms	0%	1%	3%	10%

Memorex BD-RE

Panasonic BD-R DL

ASUS's new drive had no problems reading BD-R, BD-RE and BD-R DL media.  In all three cases, the SBC-04D1S-U reached a maximum transfer speed of 4.87x.

Performance Revisited:

ASUS's new BD combo drive performed as expected throughout most of our tests. The SBC-04D1S-U had no problems playing back Blu-ray movies and read single layer BD-ROM's and BD-R/RE media at 4.8x. The drive also did relatively well in our CD and DVD read tests. While its seek times were a little higher than I would have liked, it read CD's at speeds as high as 24x and single layer data DVD's at 8x. Writing CD's and DVD's wasn't a problem for the SBC-04D1S-U either. The drive turned in some respectable times and the writing quality was quite good with most CD-R and DVD±R media. With all things considered, the ASUS SBC-04D1S-U gets a solid 8 out of 10 for its performance.

Over the years, we've taken a look at a number of ASUS's optical drives. While many of them impressed us, others didn't perform nearly as well as we would have liked. Fortunately for ASUS, the SBC-04D1S-U falls into the first category rather than the latter. This compact and versatile Blu-ray combo drive offers good looks, a number of useful features and some of the fastest reading and writing speeds available on a portable unit.

Using the bundled software, the SBC-04D1S-U played all of the Blu-ray movies I had on hand, including those protected by BD+ and with BD-Live enabled features. The drive also performed fairly well in our transfer rate tests, reading BD-ROM's as well as BD-R, BD-RE and BD-R DL media at 4.8x.

For a portable drive, the SBC-04D1S-U performed very well when writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media, taking less than 11 minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD. It also turned in some respectable times when writing to other types of media. However, the writing quality could have been better with some DVD±R DL discs. When it came to reading DVD's, the SBC-04D1S-U was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and most recordable media at 8x but slowed to only 4x when reading DVD-Videos.

Reading CD's wasn't a problem for the SBC-04D1S-U either. While the drive's seek times were a little higher than I would have liked, it read pressed and recordable CD media at speeds as high as 24x. This level of performance carried over to our DAE tests, where the drive ripped audio CD's at 20x. As a writer, the SBC-04D1S-U performed as expected. The drive was relatively quick when writing to CD-R and CD-RW media and its writing quality was quite good.

ASUS's new BD combo drive also has its share of features. Along with a vertical stand design, the SBC-04D1S-U sports a glossy black finish and an external blue light. A truly portable solution, the drive is also powered completely off a computer's USB bus. Without the need for an AC power source, you can watch a Blu-ray movie or burn a DVD wherever you go. To top it all off, ASUS has included a great software bundle from CyberLink.

The ASUS SBC-04D1S-U is available now and can be purchased from online vendors like Newegg.com for about $170.

Highs:

• Reads single layer BD-ROM's at 4.8x
• Reads BD-R and BD-RE media at 4.8x
• Writes to DVD±R media at 8x
• Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
• Writes to DVD-RW media at 6x
• Writes to DVD±R DL media at 4x
• Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 8x
• Reads DVD±R and DVD±RW media at 8x
• Reads DVD±R DL media at 6x
• Reads and writes to DVD-RAM media at 5x
• Features 24x CD-R and 16x CD-RW writing speeds
• Good CD and DVD±R writing quality
• Features ASUS's FlextraLink technology
• Very compact and lightweight design
• Powered off the USB bus
• Supports bitsetting for DVD+R DL media
• Includes vertical drive stand

Lows:

• Questionable writing quality with some DVD±R  DL media
• Reads DVD-Videos at only 4x
• Cannot set the book type of DVD+R or DVD+RW media
• High seek times
• Overburns to only 95:10