Product Comparison: Dell DW316 vs ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U

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Dell DW316 Slim External USB DVD-R/RW Optical Drive

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ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U External Slim DVD+/-RW Drive

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General Specifications

Brand

Dell

ASUS

Model

DW316

SDRW-08D2S-U

Origin

China

About the Product

The Dell External USB Slim DVD +/– RW Optical Drive is a plug and play disc burning and disc playing solution that you can use with a USB port.

The portable and stylish ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U lets you create and read CDs or DVDs with speed, style, and simplicity. Encased inside a slim and elegant diamond-cut design with a shimmering finish, the SDRW-08D2S-U is a joy to carry and pair up with your Eee PC.

Key Specs

Buffer Memory

0.75 MB

1 MB

Max. DVD Reading Speed

8 x

Max. DVD Writing Speed

8 x

Dell DW316

ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U

Dell DW316

ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U

Dell DW316

ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U

What customers say about "Key Specs"

Dell DW316 Slim External USB DVD-R/RW Optical Drive

I really have no major complaints about this optical drive. It works right out of the box, and I felt no real need to read any of the instruction manual. I was able to play through my DVDs with no buffer.
Average speed (tested on a Dell Inspiron i5 2.30 GHz laptop) 3.5 MB/Sec. Top Speed (3x) 5 MB/Sec
I plugged it in to my 10 year old laptop and tried all kinds of disc, CDs with music, photos, video. I tried a DVD movie. Everything I put in played perfect. Very simple.
Super slow, speed of the tortoise nature, noisy, vibrates like a washing machine.
The drive works well, but the bundled software is totally inadequate. It could not even author the most basic DVD without a paid upgrade.

ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U External Slim DVD+/-RW Drive

Quicker than my internal drive (which works about 25% of the time these days), it's currently ripping CD's at 20x speed.
Burned an ISO image of, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit as a recovery disc for the laptop. It was silent and the same speed as my Desktop Internal optical drive.
Speed is about average, and no issues at all either reading or writing DVDs.
I have used it to burn a few CDs and DVDs, it burns at lower speed than an internal drive but I usually burn it on low speed anyway so it doesn't matter. Looks great.
On use, the unit drawer is slow to open and burn speed is typical of an 8x. Package did not come with any helpful instructions just mostly specs.

Size & Weight

Color

Black

Height

0.55 in.

0.83 in.

Width

5.7 in.

6.18 in.

Depth

5.4 in.

5.59 in.

Weight

7.05 oz.

9.92 oz.

Dell DW316

ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U

Dell DW316

ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U

Dell DW316

ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U

Dell DW316

ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U

Details

Load Type

Tray

Features

Emergency disk eject hole, Active Optimum Power Control (AOPC), CPRM support, Pre–loaded CyberLink Media Suite

Disc Encryption double security with password-controlled and hidden-file functionality, Drag-and-Burn: friendly interface with only three simple steps to burn a disc, Diamond-cut design realize aesthetics of technology

OS Compatibility

Microsoft Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10

Microsoft Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10, Mac OS X

Interfaces

USB 2.0

What customers say about "Details"

Dell DW316 Slim External USB DVD-R/RW Optical Drive

Smaller and lighter than expected, works great with no drivers or additional software on Mac OS X El Capitan. Burns DVDs quickly and accurately. Great purchase.
It works perfectly. Same for Windows 7, 8, 10, Server 2008 or 2012. With BIOS support for USB drives it works perfectly.
This is a "tray" style drive with the usual button to eject the tray so you can load/remove your media. It includes a CD with Cyberlink Media Suite software.
It's good for the price but the cable very short speciely if u gonna attack it to a mid or full tower pc and it reads information kind of slow
The only issue is that the company who provides the OS for my computer (you figure it out) doesn't provide a DVD player anymore, so I had to go online and find one to download.

ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U External Slim DVD+/-RW Drive

Simplicity of installation - all i had to do was plug in one USB cable - no software, no nothing. Didn't even get a "found new hardware" dialogue. BEAUTIFUL!
Instant recognition by, BIOS and booted off my burned Windows 7 Recovery Disc for a clean-install of OS.
The rubber grips and glossy exterior is really well made
Worked right away. Plugged into a Dell Mini 10 running Windows XP, and it "just worked," no fiddling or driver installation necessary
Stand detaches, so you can use it in either vertical or horizontal orientation.
AS noted earlier the USB cable is too short.

Reading/writing

Max. CD Reading Speed

24 x

Max. CD Writing Speed

24 x

Supported Disc Formats

CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD-R DL, M-DISC

CD-R, CD-RW, CD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD+R DL, DVD-R DL, DVD-ROM, DVD-Video

Max. CD Reading Speed
Max. CD Writing Speed

Dell DW316

ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U

Dell DW316

ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U

What customers say about "Reading/writing"

Dell DW316 Slim External USB DVD-R/RW Optical Drive

Of course the drive burns/reads pretty much any CD or DVD format disk. As quick as any USB drive I've used and works on both PC and Mac's.
Exactly what I needed. Plays CDs and DVDs. One thing I had to figure out was that you need to find an app that will play your movie as well. Was not a problem and I rather like the format of the app so yay.
I am still using this DW316 with my servers and it is still working fine at over 2 and a half years. I've had no problems or issues with audio CD's, Data CD/DVD media (reading or writing), or playing DVD's.
Every single time I put a DVD into this drive, it will spend, without exaggeration, 5-10 minutes making a series of clicks and mechanical sounds before it starts reading the disk.
It takes 30 minutes to read and install a simple driver disc for a printer.

ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U External Slim DVD+/-RW Drive

Burning and reading worked fine so far, and it is not too loud neither.
It reads and writes DVD-RAM discs, reads CDs lets you watch DVDs, and takes up very little space.
Super easy to use and comes with a dual type USB cable. Follow the easy instructions and you can create/read CD's, and DVDs. This is good for music and movies on my laptop.
Burned an ISO image of, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit as a recovery disc for the laptop. It was silent and the same speed as my Desktop Internal optical drive.
I used it to load my CD's (about 250 of them) into my MAC. One of the CDs had some scratches. This drive was not able to read it but the drive in my MacBook Pro was able to read it just fine.
I was happy with this unit at first. But after a little use, it bellied up. It would stall and not finish reading my good CDs. The case is light-weight, and the unit simply is prone to break.

Warranty / Certifications

Manufacturer Warranty

1 year(s)

Certifications

CE, FCC