Best currently available drives for DAE?

[randian]

I know everybody recommends Plextors, but they're discontinued and very hard to find. What would you recommend for a DAE drive that you can buy new right now and external FW enclosure? Databases like HydrogenAudio's are so out of date that most of the drives mentioned are discontinued.

[sbooth]

I have a Samsung SH-S202N that I'm pretty happy with. It has good C2 implementation and does a better job than the built-in Matshita in my MacBook Pro. On OS X I haven't figured out how to overread the lead-in and lead-out, so that isn't important to me personally.

[randian]

Is the Samsung a non-caching drive? Small or no offset? How well does it detect and recover from errors? Some drives grind to a halt and never speed back up when they encounter errors. What kind of enclosure do you use? I've heard some external drive enclosures make C2 not work correctly (something to do with the bridge chips).

I don't think any drives other than the Plextor's support overread. None that I've heard about, anyway.

[sbooth]

A good resource for these types of questions is http://daefeatures.co.uk because it has a fairly comprehensive database.

I should have asked first if you want a SATA or ATAPI drive- I have several ATAPI devices I use for testing with a ByteCC adapter (no enclosure), as the one external enclosure I have did not work properly with C2 enabled- a bridge chipset issue. I also have some SATA drives on order for testing that I will probably spring for FireWire enclosures for.

[randian]

The folks over at HydrogenAudio seem to think that the daefeatures database is of questionable reliability and not really up to date. Newegg thinks the 202N is a 2MB cache drive, while daefeatures says it doesn't cache. Which to trust?

Since I'd be attaching this to an iMac, I'd need a USB or (preferred) FireWire 400 enclosure. SATA is probably the way to go in that case, since I can't directly connect an ATAPI device. I have no idea which FW enclosures can be trusted not to screw up C2.

The 202N, btw, is discontinued. The SH-223Q looks interesting, though, if the daefeatures entry can be trusted.

[sbooth]

I'm also eyeing the S223Q- I plan on getting one for testing.

I would also recommend SATA drives- most external enclosures these day are SATA and not ATAPI so you'll have more choices. I also haven't heard of as many C2 problems with the SATA -> Firewire bridge chipsets.

As far as the accuracy of the DAE features database, who knows? I can tell you I have recently used the SH-S202N, a Pioneer DVR-116DVK, and an ASUS DVD-E818A3. All were superior to my MacBook Pro's internal Matshita drive.

[randian]

I'm also eyeing the S223Q- I plan on getting one for testing.

What enclosure will you be using? I have no idea which FW enclosures work properly (doesn't mess up C2, etc) in this application.

[sbooth]

What enclosure will you be using? I have no idea which FW enclosures work properly (doesn't mess up C2, etc) in this application.

I haven't decided yet- I will post here when I get one and have a chance to test it out.

[randian]

What enclosure will you be using? I have no idea which FW enclosures work properly (doesn't mess up C2, etc) in this application.

I haven't decided yet- I will post here when I get one and have a chance to test it out.

I hope you're able to complete testing soon