Drives > DVD±RW (+R Double Layer) Drives

Advantages: Good burner, quick and quite cheap
Disadvantages: Ripping speed for duel layer dvds slightly slow

...and to replace my aging pioneer 104 (that writes only at 1x to dvd). I got tired of waiting for a full 50 minutes to burn a whole dvd so a new drive was in order. The drive itself is quite cheap but the version I got was OEM so can with no software etc but for £50 it was a bargain. It didn't come with any cables and didnt even come with screws. Not a huge problem but worth pointing out. The drive itself is of a standard size and looks quite plain ...
...grey version available but as these cost more for the same drive...I don't see the need. Installing the drive was easy, just set it to master and your second drive to slave (if you have one) screw it into a bay and away you go. The only other thing to do is update the drives firmware before you start burning. Firmware is bascially software that is held inside the chips on the drive. Like an internal driver, once updated once thats it done for good, ... Read review

Advantages: Very fast, very stable, well priced.
Disadvantages: None which come to mind

As drives go, the NEC 3500a is nothing special to look at, a bit of a plain Jane with it's utilitarian beige facia, no headphone sockets and volume control (but who ever used these anyway?) I needed one to convert some movie footage of my granddaughters first Christmas nativity play at her school for my daughter. Previously I had tried to convert it to VCD on a normal CD but the results were, shall we say, less than dissapointing. So I had a look ...
...things) as they concluded that NEC had imposed something called a "rip lock" on the system in order to minimise the occurance of pirate DVD copying, or at least to make the process less easy. What the rip lock does is to slow the drive to about 1/2 it's capable speed when burning, this apparently is easy to over come by simply downloading a firmware update (not official of course which invallidates the drives warrantee) which allows the drive to ... Read review

Advantages: Quick, Easy, Reliable, Small, Fits into any pocket or bag
Disadvantages: Faded out use lately

I originally bought this external floppy drive a few years ago after the standard for laptops was not to have an inbuilt floppy drive already in them however at the time floppy disks were still in use from time to time. It doesn't mean that this can't be used for desktop computers that don't have internal floppy drives. Power ********* Usually when having an external device like an external hard drive or optical drive you would usually need more ...
...the power into a power socket in the wall and a separate cable to send and receive data between the device and the computer however with this external floppy drive it has completely changed. Now all that is need with this floppy drive is simply just one USB cable with a mini USB connected to the drive making it quick and easy to use when your on the move as well as easy to fit and store on the move with no extra cabling which could possibly get tangled ... Read review

Advantages: faster optical drive with 2MB buffer size.
Disadvantages: --

Asus optical drive is more then stable product. With fast reading, fast writing, it make everybody like Asus optical drive. With IDE/ATAPI interface, ASUS DRW 1608P make it always support at all pc. At max operating, this optical drive temperature always stable, and not make a big noise. Make reading faster with 2MB buffer size. If you see with front side at this ASUS DRW 1608P, it look a strong optical drive. Dual compatibility feature make your ... Read review

Advantages: Very, very cheap; SATA; Fast; Reads/Writes most DVD formats
Disadvantages: Only comes in beige; No DVD-RAM writing (Read Only)

...REVIEW I bought my Pioneer DVR-212D, a few days ago for just £11 inc. VAT, BRAND NEW, from eBuyer.com. I hope you agree that's an incredible price for a S-ATA DVD rewriter. I only really needed the Pioneer drive to aid in testing the functionality of another more current P-ATA DVD-RW drive that was exhibiting some very odd behaviour that I wasn't absolutely certain was the drive's fault, so I wasn't too fussy about it being highly specified. Having ...
...the drive vertically. Being Pioneer I imagine longevity is a given, at least here in my household they have an enviable reputation for reliability. I have never managed to break anything I have bought from them in the past. It doesn't seem to matter what quality of disc you present it with either, it just accepts any old tat. Even the really nasty 8x reject DVDs my local computer emporium tries to pass of as quality gear work in this drive, a welcome ... Read review