I bought this drive to use with my new Acer 13" 3810T which doesn't have an optical drive. I rarely use one, but I needed to have one....just in case.
The drive itself is VERY small, and I don't see how they could make one any smaller. Aesthetically it looks great. It came with one cable, with an interesting design. It has two regular USB plugs, which BOTH connect to a single mini-usb plug. You plug in both USB plugs to your laptop, and plug the other end into your laptop, and you're good to go.
Obviously this would pose a problem if you only have 1 usb port on a side, because the cord is not long enough to reach around. In the manual they show a picture of using an extension usb cord to reach the other side. I haven't tried this using only one plug, because I knew ahead of time I had two side-by-side usb ports I could use. The cord itself is quite short also, so expect to have the dvd drive less than a foot away.
I used it to burn recovery disks for my Acer, but haven't done any "speed" tests, but I didn't buy it for that purpose.
It's small, light, looks nice, and doesn't need a separate power cord!