Gotega External DVD Drive, USB 3.0 Portable +/-RW, DVD Player for CD ROM Burner Compatible with Laptop Desktop PC Windows Linux OS Apple Mac Black

Worked absolutely perfectly. No downloads or updates needed on my PC. Plugged it in and it worked instantly. Read my old cds and dvds with no problem at all. Just what I needed.

The new computers don't come with the CD option. I bought this to use when we need this option. It works great.

Let me start by saying this should really be a 3 1/2 star rating, and if the drive writes as slowly as it reads I'd drop it to 3 stars.So first the good stuff:Drive is well packaged by the manufacturer and includes an instruction card that is actually useful and readable if you really need one.Plug and play worked perfect right out of the box on both Windows 10 Pro and Windows 11 Pro.Drive has an eject button (something ridiculously missing on other drives of this type) and even an emergency eject mechanism so kudos there as well.Drive played both music CDs and DVD movies quickly using VLC Media Player but getting them recognized was a bit of a jump through hoops situation (more on that below).Generous warranty (IF the manufacturer actually honors it).The not so good stuff:The drive is made of a cheap plastic and does not feel solid or well made.Instead of a drop in tray this drive uses the lower quality and less reliable snap-in type and you have to be very careful here because if you exert too much pressure I believe the tray will either break off or at the very least come out of it's sliders.You have to force the cable into a very narrow slot in the bottom to get the drive to sit flat (and believe me you want to to sit flat or the laser does NOT read the disc).Cable is EXTREMELY short. Even when using a laptop you have to have enough space right next to the laptop for the cable to reach. And you can't actually use it if your laptop is on your lap (Hence the name laptop). Could not use on either of my Desktop PCs, even the short tower without having to spend additional money for an extension cable.Reading data from a Disc is EXTREMELY SLOW. Insert a Disc and the drive spins up and makes noise fairly quick, then just seems to hang there for a LONG time like it's having trouble reading. At times the drive would disappear from the list of drives and then reappear after a LONG wait. Then it would be 7 - 10 minutes for the disc contents to finally show up. Click on what you want and the long process starts all over again before the content opens.Reading music CDs and DVDs was quicker but Windows Media Player and Movies and TV both reported "No data found on disc" errors and showed 0 Bytes. I had to install VLC Media Player for the disc to be recognized and played. Even then I did not get the usual popup asking me what I wanted to do with the disc. I had to go into the list of drives, right click this drive and then select the "Open With" option form the context menu and choose VLC Media Player to get them to play (Choosing either Windows Media Player or Movies and TV here still yielded the same errors mentioned above).Right-clicking the drive in the drive list gives an option to "Eject" but this simply ejects the disc from the drive, not the drive from the PC. And.........There is no option to "Safely Remove Drive" so make sure there is no disc in the drive before you disconnect it.Overall Impressions:Drive is okay for the price when it comes to reading discs as long as you have a LOT of patience and a little experience with how drives work on Windows. I have not tried writing any discs yet, but if the write times are as poor as the read times I don't think this drive would be worth the price even on sale.

Easy connection. Works well.

Everything you need it to be. Very compact and has built in USB. Stays in my laptop bag for whenever the need arises.

Great.

Easy installation, portable because I use it as an external drive for my Photo Booth, it was compatible with Microsoft 10 and 11, overall just a normal hard drive so functionality normal.

UPDATE: This is still a nice DVD Reader/Writer external drive, but I had to come back and tell you of 2 issues I found with mine, this affects only those in the United States or Region 1 Zone, the DVD R/W unit would play my DVD's just fine, but once I started trying to BURN DVD videos, it bombed and would not encode or write to the DVD, it put files on the blank DVD, but never closed the DVD burn, so the blank disc that got written was completely unusable. I soon found out the DVD came with the Region set for Region 2, a foreign country outside the US, Region 2 will not work to burn DVD's in the United States, at least mine wouldn't. So I changed the Region to Region 1, tried to burn a DVD project I had saved again, it dropped the ball and just made another unusable DVD disc. Now I had this DVD R/W unit plugged into a POWERED USB HUB, and therein lies the 2nd issue with this unit, IT CAN NOT BE USED FROM A HUB, it MUST BE PLUGGED DIRECTLY INTO A COMPUTER USB PORT, once I had moved the drive to the computer USB, I tried again to burn a DVD, SUCCESS! So, sadly, the USB cord on the DVD is built in and far, far TOO SHORT for use. The cord is only about 1 foot long or maybe 1 foot 3 inches, NOT LONG ENOUGH, it should have either had a replaceable USB Cord, or the Built-in USB cord should have been at least 5 foot long, or the company SHOULD HAVE SUPPLIED AN EXTENDER Cable with the unit, because, again, the USB cord is WAY, WAY too short to be practical for optimal placement (easy reach and access) of the unit, if it weren't built-in, I could have just swapped it for a longer USB cord I have on hand.And this is why I have deducted an addition 2 stars from my original review in this update and dropped it to 2 stars, if I had known the unit's USB cord was BUILT-IN and NOT replaceable, honestly, I never would have purchased this particular unit. All my other USB devices have connectors on the device and I can just replace the USB cord when it fails, not with this unit.So, if you have this unit and are having similar issues I have in the United States, you need to change it to REGION 1 for the US, and make sure the DVD IS NOT connected through a hub. Mine ALWAYS FAILED with an error from every DVD Burning software I tried that the software could not access the drive or disc, check power and be sure power is restored and the is a disc in the unit, which both were true, yet, it failed just the same.As long as you're aware of these pitfalls, you can use this external DVD Reader/writer if you do what I did in my above commentary.Dislikes: My only real dislike is the USB cable, it is not a USB cable that can be unplugged from the DVD Reader/Writer, it is hard-wired into the unit, so if the DVD Drive USB cable ever fails, and it will at some point, the drive is rendered useless.If the USB cable was a plug in at both the DVD Drive and the computer, that would have been much smarter, as when the USB cable fails, again, the DVD Drive is rendered useless at that point and unusable. And I have had to replace USB cables on external devices a few times over their many years of use. So to me, this was a bad design flaw in its makeup. So I did deduct one star for this problem in the overall rating.Likes: Easy self installation via USB port, works great for my old DVD collections, play is excellent, no skips, jumps or degradation of video or audio from DVD's or music from music CD's.I bought this and an external 2TB hard drive as my system is an older, limited computer and no room for more than 2 options like adding an internal DVD/CD reader/writer or more than 2 Hard Drives, which are presently installed in this limited desktop case. Also, bought a nice 7 port powered USB hub with 4 USB charging ports for charging my rechargeable items, like cell phones, cat toys, USB battery charger that charges my 9V rechargeable batteries, and especially for using with the new external DVD Reader/Writer and 2TB Hard Drive, as well as a few other existing devices on my computer. I'll be reviewing the 3.0 USB Hub and External Hard Drive in 2 addition reviews under their specific area.Yes, I'd recommend the device, other than the USB cable not being able to be unplugged {hardwired in} from the back of the unit, it's an excellent unit. But wanted folks to be aware that the USB cable IS hardwired and NOT replaceable if it ever fails.