It has been five years since the public release of Blu-ray technology and nearly three years since it became the primary high capacity optical disc platform. Only now are we beginning to see this technology being included into the average notebooks as standard instead of an option on high end notebooks.
Fortunately for those of us who opted out on the Blu-ray option in the past and who do not feel like buying a whole new notebook there are ways to update. Silverstone is one of a few companies to provide aftermarket slim Blu-ray drives such as the TOB01 which I will be looking at today.
Specifications
Dimensions: 5.04” x 5.08” x 0.5” (W x D x H) — 128mm x 129mm x 12.7mm
Weight: 190±10g
Interface: SATA (150MB/s)
Power Requirement: 5Vdc
Buffer memory: 2MB
Bezel Color(s): Silver + Black
Software: Cyberlink PowerDVD BD suite
Supported OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, Mac OS and Linux
Warranty Length: Region Specific
Price: N/A
First Impressions
We feel that packaging is one of the most important parts of a product, its performance and aesthetics matter but the package is the products first impression. Much like a person just from looking at a package one begins to make assumptions about the product. In this case Silverstone kept the packaging to an elegant minimum with a box fabricated out of soft and fuzzy card board accented by a black band with basics about the product.
After opening the package there is a Styrofoam block with two lids, one containing SATA cables, screws and a silver bezel, the other contained the Blu-ray Drive itself and the software: CyberLink PowerDVD 9. Also included in the package is a TOB01 manual with specifications, warranty information and basic installation for desktops but none for basic installation for notebooks. Although installing it in a notebook is not hard by any means and can vary slightly, a manual would be beneficial for people that may not be overly confident in swapping parts in their notebook.
The accessories package was not a home run but it sure does go a long way. For example, the two bezel options are oriented towards desktop users but it shows thought in the development in the product. Desktops are usually silver and black, so having the opposite color is not exactly aesthetically pleasing.
Carrying on to specifications, the TOB01 supports a variety of formats from BD-R/RE to regular, rewritable and dual layer DVDs and even CDs. Some may be inclined to believe that if you update to Blu-ray you will lose the functionality of your older DVDs and CD’s, but this is not the case with the Silverstone TOB01. Unlike conventional DVD/CD drives the TOB01 has two lasers, one to read DVDs and CDs, the other to read Blu-Ray discs.
Installation
Since notebook-cooling.com is a mobile oriented site we will be covering installation for notebooks. The first important step is to establish that the Silverstone TOB01 is not a slot load drive, or in other words you have to open the drive to load a disc. If you currently have a slot load drive, the TOB01 is not an upgrade option. Moreover, your optical bay (where your optical drive is) must be SATA.
Moving on to the physical installation process, the first step to installing the optical drive is to remove your old one. There is usually one screw holding the optical drive into the computer, the location will vary but in most cases it is either a screw on the bottom of the notebook or it is under a panel. To find out specifics about your laptop take a look at its manual as it should give you detailed instructions on removing your optical drive.
After you remove the screw, the next step is to get the drive out. In most cases it should slip out fairly easily without much pull, but in some cases (such as mine) the optical drive can really get stuck in there. If it is stuck, avoid pulling where the optical drive opens rather try to push it out the other side if possible.
Once removed it is time to prep the TOB01 for installation. Start by removing the bezel off your original optical drive and also the stock bezel of the TOB01. Do this cautiously and carefully as you will need the parts again. We recommend starting at one end and giving it a soft tug to see if it begins to unclip. If it does not unclip, try the other side. Once both are removed take the bezel from your original optical drive and clip it onto the TOB01. Following this, remove the screw mount from the original drive and attach it to the new one.
Silverstone has conveniently provided several mounting locations for the screw mount as the location varies by notebook manufacturers. There are general guidelines and, therefore, it is pretty much guaranteed to work on your notebook.
Once both are attached you can simply slide the TOB01 into optical bay and re-screw it back in. All this should take no more than 15 minutes, which is pretty quick for a major upgrade.
Noise
Initially, we were rather disappointed in the noise created by the drive as we believed it was louder than other optical drives we have had in the past. We ended up taking out a few older optical drives and ran them just for comparison.
The result was that it was actually the same volume; the main difference was simply the sound type. Rather than a sound of vibration a sound of the spinning is emitted. It is almost like a constant "whoosh" that revs up every now and then. While watching movies we found the "whoosh" noise to be a lot easier to drone out than the sound of vibration from other drives. But that’s just our opinion, yours may differ.
Software
Silverstone has bundled CyberLink PowerDVD 9 along with the TOB01. PowerDVD is one of two major software options to play Blu-ray movies.
We admit that we did not have much experience trying media players aside from VLC in recent years but we found PowerDVD 9 simple to install and to operate. The standard set of buttons including Play, Pause, Stop etc are clear on the left side of the bottom bar while the other side is occupied by other additional features and controls.
There is also "Cinema Mode". Cinema Mode is specifically designed to be used with a remote rather than a mouse. With a remote, you are expected to sit further away and functions are simplified and enlarged for that purpose.
As with anything there are a couple downsides, such as "Movie Live" that Cyberlink automatically includes with PowerDVD. It runs within the program and shows the "Most Viewed by PowerDVD Users" and provides access to information about movies. Although this may sound like a beneficial feature we find it bogs the program and complicates a powerful and simple media player.
Performance
Like for almost any part of a computer, there are benchmarks for optical drives and the most popular one is currently Nero DiscSeek. It is a free utility that measures speed, access times, and CPU usage amongst other values.
DVD-R (Certified Data 16x DVD-R 4.72GB)
Regrettably we were only able to get "Speeds" benchmarking this disc. It is not the fault of the TOB01 but rather Nero DiscSpeed being picky (3 other DVD-R brands failed before this actually went). Speeds were actually fairly good though, starting at 3.42x and moving all the way up to 8.20x. (For those unfamiliar with the "x" after the number it is simply just a way of expressing the speed.)
BD-R (Panasonic BD-R 1-6x 25GB)
Before we did a regular benchmark, we ran the "Create Disc" benchmark in which the average write speed was 1.66x, with a peak of 2.10x.
A BD-R is a single write Blu-Ray disc. Our benchmarks show that once again the speeds continuously climbed and reached 5.94x. That is only 0.06x off the 6x rated for the Silverstone TOB01. Continuing on to CPU usage, the drive performed delightfully by only using a minimal 1% (max) of the CPU throughout the benchmark.
BD-RE (Sony BD-RE 1-2x 25GB)
Well with the BD-RE I were actually quite puzzled, the regular benchmark states the BD-RE surpassed 2x and reached 3.96 which is the maximum speed for both the disk and the TOB01 (which the maximum is 6x if it was CAV for read (CLV is not specified)). My best guess would be either something is not syncing right or that the benchmark itself is forcing a 4x limit which could explain the issue as well. If any readers out there have any insight please feel free to post in the comments below!
With the "Create Disc" benchmark the disc and TOB01 stayed within its territory with an average speed of 0.87x and reaching a maximum of 0.89%. Once again CPU usage was minimal with an average of 1%
Real Life Test
For our second test , we decided to do a real life scenario: back up pictures. We selected a total of 642 images, with a total file size of 3.48GB or an average size of 5.54MB per image. We continued to use the computer in a normal fashion by browsing the web and using Microsoft Word as we would expect many users to do so while backing up. Including calculating time (computer recognizing the files) it took a total of 25minutes and 6.1 seconds.
We continued by doing the reverse test as well, taking those 642 images and copying them back to the computer which took 9 minutes and 28.3 seconds.
Conclusion
Once again Silverstone shines proud and leaves us with no disappointments as the TOB01 has proven that it does what it is advertised to do. Not only is installation easy, it takes a mere 15 minutes for the upgrade. Moreover its benchmarks have indicated that the product is performing similar to what Silverstone claims and for its versatility it practically speaks for itself, it reads and all major CD and DVD formats as well as the latest Blu-ray discs.
It is a product that we would have no problems recommending for anyone interested in upgrading their notebook to play and write Blu-rays and other optical disc media.
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January 4th, 2012 at 11:23 pm
Maybe Lydia will become a prostitue in London and have to be rescued alongwith her syphylitic twins, Tera gold