External USB 8X DVD +/-RW Dual Layer Burner for PC or Laptop

by Brainydeal

Product Details

• Item Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B0018LO1R8
• Item model number: GDVDR1B
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (116 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #10 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > External Components > Optical Drives > DVD Drives
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 29, 2008

Product Description

Description:Speed: 24x CD/CD-R/CD-RW (read) 24x CD-R (write) 24x CD-RW (write) 8x DVD (read) 8x DVD (write). Supported CD Formats: CD Text CD Extra CD-DA (audio) CD-ROM XA Photo CD CD-ROM. Supported Media Types: CD-ROM CD-R CD-RW DVD-R DVD-RW DVD+RW DVD+R DVD+R DLMedia Load Type: Tray. Enclosure Type: External. Enclosure Color: blank. Powered from the computer's USB port no AC adapter required. Dimensions (WxDxH): 5.6" x 6.1" x 0.75". Weight: 0.9 lbs . Software Requirement: Windows 98SE/2000/ME/XP/VistaUSB 2.0 External Rewriteable DVD +/- RW Drive is so slim that you can put it into your pocket! No additional AC adapter and software needed supports plug and play this portable external DVD burner lets you can instantly watch DVDs and create DVDs CDs with your notebooks tablet PCs and desktop PCs. Featuring fast DVD record speeds the Slim DVD+/-RW Drive burns at 8x speeds in DVD-R and DVD+R formats.Plug and play no additional software drivers needed. USB 2.0 Interface.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

95 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bought this one based on these reviews, January 29, 2009

By 

Captain (Colorado) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: External USB 8X DVD +/-RW Dual Layer Burner for PC or Laptop (Electronics)

I bought this external optical drive for my new Asus 1000h based on the well written and convincing reviews here, and even though the Targus at twice the price is always promoted along with the Asus and Acer netbooks. (My Asus rocks by the way) Just like the other reviews say, I plugged in the power cord (runs off of 1 usb) and the data cord (another of the 3 Asus usb's) and the Asus recognized it immediately and I began downloading software cd's for my new Canon dslr. Then I watched a movie dvd. That was it. Didn't need the driver cd. Also comes with a LG DVD Writer Solution DVD if you need/want it. I'm pretty picky, and this unit exceeded my expectations. It's perfect. And thanks to the previous reviewers, you were spot on and saved me almost $100.

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tiny external DVD a perfect fit to my Eee PC-1000HE, March 22, 2009

By 

John P. Toscano (Apple Valley, MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: External USB 8X DVD +/-RW Dual Layer Burner for PC or Laptop (Electronics)

I bought this external DVD player/burner drive for my Asus Eee PC-1000HE netbook conmputer, which has no built-in optical drive. Although I don't expect to use it heavily, it has already proved its worth by making it incredibly simple to replace the hard drive in the netbook with a SSD drive. With the Asus recovery disc in the drive and a blank SSD, the netbook booted from the DVD drive, and the recovery disk did all the rest of the work in transforming the empty SSD to a fully-configured and bootable hard drive.

The drive has had no trouble reading any CD or DVD disc that I've put in it, as long as I plug in BOTH of the USB cables -- one for data, and the other to provide additional +5 volt power. As far as burning goes, so far I have only tried one burn of a DVD+R/DL disc, and was a little surprised. The discs say that they are 8x but Nero refused to burn at anything other than 2.4x speed. And the burn failed the rescan test. So then I put another of these blank discs into the Sony DVD drive on my desktop PC, and got the same results! As it turns out, the bargain discs I had bought (not from Amazon) were really only rated as 2.4x and they are apparently a lower quality than I had thought, in spite of the markings on the external packaging. So, I guess I can't blame this external DVD drive for the burn failure, it seems to be a problem with my cheap media. I will eventually get around to testing it with better blank discs, but I'm betting it will work out okay.

The drive itself it incredibly tiny, not much bigger than a couple of CD jewel cases stacked together! Along with the diminutive size comes very low weight. These are good attributes to have in a DVD drive to be used on a netbook computer. The case is fairly thin metal, so you don't want to press down on the top of the drive very hard when opening or closing the door, with a little care it should last a long time.

It is a real plus that you don't need any batteries or AC adapter to run this drive, just two USB ports on your computer so the second connection can be made to provide extra power. Some computers might put out enough current through each USB socket that you could get by with using only one port, but probably not in a laptop. If you find the use of two USB ports to be a problem, you can find small AC adapters that convert wall current to 2 to 4 USB power-only ports, and could use one of those to provide the extra 5 volt current if you are short on USB ports.

I used mine on a Windows XP system, and did not have to use any drivers of any sort to make it be recognized. In fact, as already noted, the eee PC 1000HE was able to boot from the DVD drive at a time when there was no operating system at all installed in the netbook computer, just a completely blank Solid State Disk drive, so I find it hard to believe that other OS's like Vista could not operate this device easily as at least one review has stated, but while I had zero difficulty, YMMV (and I have not tried Vista myself).

Highly recommended.

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It works!, January 17, 2009

By 

Chimp Chimperson "Chimp Chimperson" (Buffalo, NY USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: External USB 8X DVD +/-RW Dual Layer Burner for PC or Laptop (Electronics)

I bought this to use with my Asus 904ha netbook. It works great! It is plug and play with XP, just as the other reviewers said. It's thin and light for easy travel. Powered off of your USB, which is very cool. It burns and plays CDs and DVDs just fine. And it was super cheap, too!

I have also used it on other computers running on Vista. It worked fine on those as well.

The directions included are pretty much incomprehensible (very poorly translated...in fact it was kind of comical) But, that didn't matter, since it worked as soon as I plugged it in. And it also included a disc with drivers. Again, it wasn't needed.

I'd recommend this product. In fact, I might even buy another.