Quick look at 5.25″ external USB DVD writter casing for Notebook and Desktop

As usual, this post is also inspired by the questions I have received via emails.

Many of us have bought Notebook just an year ago and many of them have increased the warranty of their product for another 2 years. With warranty or without it, a notebook bought just an year ago would have good configuration to run Windows XP and basic office and home entertainment applications for another year or 2 at-least.

But there is one major draw back with any mid range of entry level notebook bought a year or year and a half ago. That is, a missing DVD writer. Most of these notebooks come with Combo drive which means support for reading DVD only.

A Combo drive is a type of optical drive that combines CD-R/CD-RW recording capability with the ability to read (but not write) DVD media.

With ever increasing size of our personal pictures taken from high megapixel digital camera and needs to convert a video taken on a handy cam to DVD or burning your favorite videos to DVD would require a DVD writer. Unfortunately a laptop / notebook internal DVD writer or as some call it RAMBO would cost Rs. 7500 or higher when taken from computer vendors like, Dell / HP / Acer / Lenovo.

So the question comes up, is there any portable but external solution available which may do the job without affecting the warranty ? Once again, available options like, an External USB DVD writer would cost you more or less the same amount as a internal optical drive !!

However there is one low-tech solution available for this, which is making an internal 5.25″ desktop DVD writer to work with your notebook.

Let us take a quick look at available 5.25″ casing for external DVD writer.

Product Name

5.25″ DVD writer casing for IDE desktop DVD writers !!

Price

Rs. 550/- including all TAX

Specifications

• Compatible with IDE interface
• Plug and play with Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista / 2008.
• External Power supply.
• USB Interface
• Internal FAN for heat dissipation.

The Product at a glance

Test Setup

What did I use for testing purpose ?

For hardware front,

• 50 Blank LaserTras DVDs (4.7 GB) / 10 Verbatim DVD RWs (DVD 4.7 GB)
• 10 Dual Layer Blank DVDs (8.5 GB)
• 4.7 GB DVD RW / 8.5 GB DVD RW
• Samsung miniDV Handy Cam
• Acer 4720 / Lenovo 3000 N200 / Compaq C702TU / Acer 4100 series (Pentium Mobile 1.6 GHz)
• Samsung / Sony / Asus / Liteon, 5.25″ internal DVD RW drives

For software front,

• Windows 2000 Professional SP4
• Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 (Both x64 / x86)
• Windows XP Professional SP2 (Both x64 / x86)
• Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition R2 SP2 (Both x64 / x86)
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition (Both x64 / x86)
• Nero 7 / Nero 8
• Ashampoo 7
• Uled Video Studio 10

Assembling it

The top cover is completely removable which is secured by 4 screws, as you may see in the bellow image, that once you get the top cove out, you may simply place the DVD RW drive in side it.

Tighten up the side screws and connect the cables (IDE and Power) which is visible in this bellow image !! Now you may place the top cover and attach the top 4 screw.

Thats it, pretty easy to assemble and you are now all set to use it.

Real world performance and operation testing

BIOS immediately detects the hardware and reports it as a bootable option under the boot devices.

Same with Windows XP, as you plug the device, windows XP is quick to detect and install automatically, you can see the task bar pop up displaying the installation process.

The drive is listed as a optical drive under device manager also,

and the properties view of the drive under Windows XP

Identical plug and play result under Windows Vista as well, simple plug and play installation

Device Manager under Windows Vista listing it as optical drive with USB interface.

Also you get the option to stop the device just like any other USB removable device.

What about reading performance ??

It supports and works under DMA, therefore you get the full speed operation and speeds as fast as your internal DVD RW drive. Bellow screen shot is one from many copy test I have run after burning the disk via the external DVD writer itself. Speeds are really great when you copy the data to any SSD based drives compare to slower 5400 RPM disks.

How about the real thing, the burning performance !!

I have tested this device with different burning applications, such as Nero / Ashampoo / Windows Vista default recording / Ulead Video Studio (for miviDV to DVD) and it performs as satisfactory as any internal drive !!

I have tested with different media like cheapest 4.7 GB blanks (50 of them in one go for load and heat test in hot weather without AC) to best of the lot the verbatim media also with 8.5 GB dual layer as well as the both form of RW media, now do note, more than casing, the support for different type of media is dependent on the drive it self, therefore I have used different drives from Sony / ASUS / LG / Liteon and found they run as good as any internal drive !!

Nero application detecting the external drive as a option to burn data using it,

Burning a 4.7 DVD using nero at top speed possible with the media.

You can also use the feature copy on fly to use your combo drive to copy a DVD and burn it directly on a disk using the external drive !!

same with ashampoo, as in bellow screen shot you may see Ashampoo works with it as just like an internal DVD RW,

Many of us own a miniDV handy cam now, one use full feature of which is using applications like ulead video studio to directly burn a miniDV recorded data from cam to a DVD. This external drives works fine in this test also. Please note, the time which takes to complete this process is dependent over the configuration of the configuration of your system.

Doesn’t it have any negative point ?

Sure it does, well a couple of them, biggest would be as its external powered one therefore if power goes off, or there is some voltage fluctuation the device would restart and if you are in process of burning would mean loss of the media as burn process would fail in middle of it.

Second most important is the reliability. This is a cheap local product, though your DVD drive mau come with warranty but the casing wont have any such. So if the power adapter fails or you have any other problem with the casing would mean buying a new one.

The device is pretty reliable once you get the 1st day passed. I have burnt almost 70 DVDs while in testing and found problem with just 2 that too one because of power problem another is possible error in the media it self.

Last but not the least would be the fact that its bulky compare to your laptop usage !!

• It bulky
• No protection from Power cut or voltage fluctuation
• No warranty support

Verdict

No doubt, it has its own problems but device is reliable enough, performance is as good as any internal drive and price is almost 4 time less than a internal notebook drive or an external branded drive !! So if you are looking to add DVD writing support for your notebook, this would be a better option than an costly internal drive !!

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