Full Review

The Asus external optical USB drive is slim and styled well, and quite literally brings its own stand to the show. It differentiates itself from other similar (and lower-priced) drives with a stand that lets you place it vertically to save desk space and you can choose color between black or white. It reads all types of CD/DVDs, but writes to them slower than internal ones, which isn’t unusual since it is limited by the USB interface in terms of how much power it can draw. The drive is automatically recognized by Windows, and needs no drivers to be installed for its operation. To ensure sufficient power, Asus provides a Y-cable with two USB connectors.

The bundled CD includes a firmware update program, Asus’ Turbo Engine software. The bundled Cyberlink Power2Go software for writing discs provides all the basic functionality you might be accustomed to (like Nero Burning-RoM). Power2Go also provides for password-protected encryption of a disc you burn (fully or partially). Read speed of DVDs is claimed to be 8x, and we measured an actual average of 6.5x. Dual-layer DVDs were slower at 5x for both read and write. You’d most commonly encounter DVD-R (single-layer blank discs) which were written to at an average of 6.1x. A windows 7 install from a DVD proceeded at half the speed seen in desktop optical drives. We saw an average data transfer speed of 20x while reading and writing to CD-R discs. These are in line with expectations since speed hits the maximum only in the outermost tracks of a disc. It is targeted at usage with Netbooks (mini-notebooks without an optical drive) and useful if the optical drive is mal-functioning on a desktop/laptop.

The price of this drive definitely exceeds that of a standard 3.5-inch internal DVD-Writer used in desktops. If you take an internal SATA DVD-Writer and put it in a USB casing, the cost involved will be just Rs. 1,500 - barely half of this external drive. But that would require a separate power cable, and also be so much bulkier compared to this slim drive. So if you'd need to lug your external optical drive around, this Asus optical drive is far more practical. The rating of this drive could go higher, if not for its price and inherent speed dis-advantage compared to internal drives. Those who've gone beyond CDs and DVDs into the land of high-definition movies and Bluray discs, might want to take a look at Asus's slim Bluray reader external drive, the SBC-04D1S-U.

Bottom Line

Get this drive instead of encasing a desktop DVD drive to work over external USB.