The Asus external DVD burner just arrived today. It was very nice looking and lightweight. Goes well with my black Asus EEE PC 900HA. Simple plug and play installation. However, I did not install the Cyberlink Power2go 6 software that was included in the package. The Y cable is about 20-21 inches long which is good enough for me since it is neither too short or too long. Underneath the dvd burner, there is rubbery panel that is removable and it is where you hook up the stand.
Anyway, I wanted to test how fast the drive can burn. So I plugged it into my old Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop and I used Nero 7 Ultra Edition software to burn 4.16 gigs of stuff in under 21 minutes (with verify disc option turned on). It is really fast and consistent (speed top out at 7.8X on a number of occasions). My Phillips burner in my Dell never came close to that speed (at most 6X). The noise isn't that noticeable either (or made just as much noise as the Phillips burner).
Overall, I'm quite pleased and surprised by the performance and looks of the Asus external DVD burner.
Additional notes: I used 2 USB ports (one on the laptop and one on Antec notebook cooler which was also connected to laptop) during the burning process and it didn't seem to have affected the performance.
Also, I ran some discs using only 1 USB port and they played fine. This ASUS external DVD only arrived today, but it works like a charm. We bought it so we can watch movies on our ASUS 901 Linux. Simple plug and play operation, and able to watch movies on it with no added software. Extremely pleased with this product. No plans to write to it, just watch movies.Along with my Asus 1000 HA netbook purchase I also bought the Asus SDRW external DVDRW optical drive. The drive gets its power from the 2 usb ports. I was a bit skeptical about the drive getting ample power from the netbook.
To my amazement the optical drive booted up with no power problems. The low price was also a factor in purchasing the optical drive. It's a small unit that does not take up any more space than the small Asus netbook itself.The ASUS DVDRW External Optical Drive SDRW-08D1S-U is a valuable addition to the home computing environment as several of my current desktops' DVD drives are read-only. This drive enables any of the computers to write to DVD with the simple installation of driver software and plugging in a pair of USB cables. The only curve ball is the need for two USB ports to support the external drive's power requirements - not a problem on the desktops, but is a limitation for laptops with only one USB port, which would require an external (and powered) USB hub. This device represents good value, easy installation, and effortless operation - an easy and affordable way to gain DVD RW capability across a number of machines!I needed a small optical drive for my asus netbook and this works well. I like the fact that I don't need to add further software to my system, since it is a netbook, and it was very easy to start using. If you need a dvd decoder, which most will, you can download VLC (a free media viewer). You will not be able to play dvds on media player unless you are willing to purchase their dvd decoder (you will find this with most optical drives). I have not tried to burn any dvds but it is not my intention to really use this device as such. I have a larger pc that I will utilize for that need. However, there are previous reviews which state it works well while burning. If you only want to watch a movie, just plug in one usb cord (no need for two, less battery requirement that way).I have a green thumb when it comes to electronic so...
I was happy to see my drive arrive. But once I plugged it in, my PC automatically recognized it, so I thought great. But when I tried to burn any CD or DVD it wouldn't. So I thought maybe for some strange reason I need to install the included software. But it kept autoruning a installer, and failed to install the software partway through. So I simply put the CD into my PC's built-in CD drive, and immediately it installed no glitch. Except I got a Windows warning advising the software and the turbo usb is not windows certified and installing can cause problems now or later.
Well I choose yes, since I wanted the drive to work.
And the Drive using the cyberlink software showed that DVD+RW at a Max burn of 4X, the box says 8X and so do the specs on Amazon.
Anyhow hitting burn resulted in a failure to burn and same for formatting, be it +r or +RW dvd's or cd's. It wont read DVD's just Cd's barely with big errors.
I was wanting to give a favorable review, but one needs the product to be working to speck to do that.
Maybe when I buy another and hopefully it works, I could give more then the 1 star.
Problem is the motors all work, but the microprocessor on this thing is badly defective.
If this drive had outright failed, that would have been much better, as one can know right away its bad and not waste time trying to run it.
Time is money and waiting to get another is frustrating.
