Customer Reviews

Velocity Micro VMdrive External DVD Burner (Black)

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Smooth operation; don't need to lug around another AC power supply; very nice package with slim black case.

Runs on USB power and works fine with Ubuntu, good quality quick burner. The drive comes with two cables, one for USB and one for additional power. I have not had to use the second cable yet and in research have found that it is only needed if your USB ports are "underpowered."

Well worth the cost in my opinion.

I purchased this for my Acer Aspire One netback, after much research. It is well made, small (about the size of a CD case with a width of about 2 cases), and does not require external power. It uses up to two usb plugs for extra power from your netbook. Even the disc door is powered from the computer.

One drawback is that it only writes to DVD-R or DVD-RW discs. It will not write to DVD+R or DVD+RW. This is not that big of a deal--just buy "-" disks to write to. It's a netbook so I do not have a lot of use for a DVD burner on the computer, anyway, other than to make system restore disks and to occasionally install software from a disc. When I travel with the netbook, I do not want to lug around anything other than the computer and cords. I put it in a slim netbook sleeve and it is like carrying a book.

During my research, I almost purchased a drive that did not have a burner. Be careful and make sure you get all of the features you need. This one is perfect for my uses, and the price was right.

One of the reviews notes that this burner will not write to DVD+R or DVD+R/W discs. I just finished writing 2 recovery discs for my new Toshiba-NB205 using DVD+R discs.
Very nice little gadget. I was able to load new software from it and watched a couple of movies with it too.

I don't have a lot of technical knowledge so when I went to to purchase a DVD burner I knew what basic functions I wanted, but reading the stream of dvd cd +r -r +w -w etc etc was brain frying, as were things like LIGHTSCRIBE technology dual layer blah de what? Getting technical info answered was also difficult for some reason, but I eventually got some answers.

So, here is the non technical version of what I was looking for, which this device does indeed meet, maybe this will help another tech clueless person out there looking for something as well. I wanted something that could:

1 read from both CD's and DVDs, both for me to pull information from as well as write information onto, and that media could then be put into pretty much any other computer with a cd or dvd drive and read. (in other words, older computers would be able to use that cd or dvd and wouldn't be going "what they heck is this?".)

2. I wanted something that could play Cd's and DVD

3. I needed something that could run off both my (relatively) new laptop and my crappy ten year old tower, so a fairly wide technology span there!

4. something that could potentially run from AC power (though as there is no AC adapter I don't see how this works, I think it failed on this one) because I have limited USB's on both my computers and didn't know if it would be able to get the power it needed. (a little trouble on my really old computer, but got it worked out.)

5.Something I could transport with my laptop and external hard drive fairly easily without having to buy a new larger carrying case

6. Something fairly sturdy as I am a klutz. (the tray is a bit flimsy, but the body is pretty sturdy and compact.)

7. Something I didn't need a special software I would then have to further invest into to operate it, in other words, I could use freeware off the net instead of having to eventually buy the trail software that comes with such things. Something truely "Plug and play"

this product has performed really well in all those regards (except for the power thing, I really wanted something I could plug into a wall but it doesn't seem to be a little energy eating monster, both computers are tolerating it.)

It also writes fairly quickly and so far everything I've burned on it has been error free and not messed up.

So if hooking things up and tech speak make you want to go hide in the closet, I'd say this product is a pretty safe bet to meet your needs. It's a nice simple piece of efficient machinery that doesn't do a lot of bells and whistles but takes care of the basics quite nicely. Hope this was helpful to someone.

I loved the idea that this drive uses USB power and doesn't require a bulky A/C adapter. However, this is its downfall (for me, at least). On my (big, expensive) laptop, it works great reading disks, but fails spectacularly when burning. Using only the "regular" USB cable, after inserting a blank DVD-R disc (Magnavox brand discs, if you care to know), it constantly disappears and reappears as a device. This happens endlessly, about every 5 seconds. I saw another reviewer here had the same problem. That isn't the aforementioned "spectacular" part of the failure though. Once I plugged in the additional USB-based power cable into another USB port (on another bus; I have two), the disappear/reappear problem went away. However, the moment I started burning my first disc, windows alerted me that there was a USB power surge because a device had drawn too much power from the USB bus. All of the USB devices in that bus then disappeared (including my external backup drive, for instance, which does have its own, separate power source). At first, I was worried that it had either hosed my backup drive or the USB bus in the laptop. Thankfully though, a power cycle brought everything back. I gave it another shot and had exactly the same problem. I then tried one more time (after another power cycle), switching the two USB ports; same thing.

I see some reviewers here have had success with the drive so I suppose it can work in some situations. However, I can testify that there are some situations where it does not work. I would recommend getting an external drive with its own power supply, despite the added bulkiness.

Got it for Christmas. Installation on two XP computers was a breeze (Plug'nPlay). No need for the software that comes with it - if you already have a "Create a DVD" Software, like Roxio, Pinnacle or Sonic.
The mystery of the two USB plugs solved: Need the second one ONLY when you BURN a DVD and only for certain computers.
I'm using "Sonic MyDVD" for burning. One computer (HP Netbook) works fine to transfer data on DVD or CD, but once you want to burn a DVD, you had to plug in the second one. BTW, you can use any plug/transformer that plugs into the wall socket and has a USB plug as an output (5VDC). IT WORKS great. That solves the problem of the nEtbooks having only 2 USB ports.

On my "regular" laptop (Toshiba Satellite) it worked great burning a DVD on one USB plug. Five minute video, it took 11 minutes, 10 minute video it took it 22 minutes! Not bad!
Since everybody takes a pic of the front, I'm adding a pic of the rear where the plugs are! It has one "B" type USB, like we used to have for printers, and one 5VDC plug for the "other" USB.

I got this for my Dell 10' Netbook, works great! Very good purchase and value!

I have used this product with two laptops that I own, two different recording software and everything works as advertised. The fact that they supply software is really great, as sometimes your pc will not have one preloaded.
Note: I used it with DVD+R and everything works great.

I bought this little external to go with my Lenovo U350 -- an ultraportable laptop without a built-in DVD drive. It works exactly as written; absolutely plug-and-play and (while it comes with an extra USB/AC adapter) powered completely by one USB port. It has a super-thin profile and is very lightweight, so I don't anticipate any difficulties travelling with it. One thing to watch out for -- it can be a little difficult to clip the disc down onto the spindle, so I would recommend using something small to support the pop-out tray while you're putting a disc in. Otherwise, works great!

The first time I used it to create backup disks for my Toshiba NB305-441 netbook and it worked fine. The second time I used it to play a DVD and it froze up after about an hour. After that, my netbook, desktop, and laptop wouldn't recognize it as a device. I tried Velocity's help desk using their website and they were very slow. It took them a week to register my account (they make you register in order to get support) and about another week to diagnose the problem and say it needs to be returned.