Customer Ratings & Reviews

I needed an external CD drive due to the fact that my new laptop did not come with an internal cd disc drive. I am one of those people who still record favorite music on CDs for music enjoyment while on the road (to and from work). I know, I know, old tech - just like my car which is not advanced either, technologically speaking. So, when it was time to make a purchase, I was not looking for anything too elaborate - just an external USB CD drive that would allow me to record purchased music on blank CDs- plain and simple; no fuss. I decided to purchase the LG - 8x External USB Double-Layer DVD±RW/CD-RW Drive - it was in the right price range and seemed to consist of the mere basics of what I needed. I've used it three times, and thus far it works as well as can be expected. Yes, it is a bit slower than that which I am accustomed (high speed internal cd drives of professional work computers), but this product is for recreational use only via the use of a simple, barebones computer. In sum, this product has thus far peformed adequately. If you are looking for a faster, higher speed external CD rewrite drive, then this will probably disappoint.

I have over 30 years experience as a PC/Server/Network technician. I have always been the Hardware pro on the team. I can say without a doubt that you can not judge this item by its price. I bought it at Best Buy on sale for $19.95 after my $5.00 reward discount and before sales tax. I needed this because my new High End laptop does not come with an optional Internal DVD drive. I knew it would be good due to its specs but anticipated it would be a little slower than an internal one as it uses USB for both power and data. I was greatly surprised that it was as fast as my internal one on my other High end laptop and the one built into my PC. There was no speed degradation and burned my CD-R's and DVD's without a hitch with the included burning software. I highly recommend this product to anyone looking for a cheaply priced but good external DVD Drive/Burner. It is an LG so you will definitely be getting a superb and well built product.

Recently built my first desktop that DIDN'T include any internal optical drive. With this, and the fact that most higher end laptops don't have optical drives, this was a great purchase when on sale. What's nice is that this is still a "tray" and not a "slot drive," so the media won't move. The USB 2.0 cable is the ONLY cable you need, no additional power connection. Plug and play, works like a charm. I still create DVD videos to share with my family (read: grandparents) but not often enough to warrant an internal drive. Since this can be used with various computers, laptop, desktop, it's a great resource to have laying around. The drive is really small, as somebody who has been into building and upgrading computers for almost 20 years I can't believe this is only powered by ONE USB cable

I recently found out that Apple doesn't offer an extended care warranty on their Superdrive. My friend's Apple drive died just after the 1 year mark and was out of luck - You're just expected to keep buying $100 peripherals every year or so... Having just gotten a good deal on an iMac, I was considering how best to continue optical drive support. The LG - 8x External USB Double-Layer DVD±RW/CD-RW Drive is perfect! Right out of the box, no driver installation is needed. iDVD and iTunes recognized it immediately. I played DVD movies and burned some playlists to audio CDs. It does what it's supposed to, and even with an additional 2-year Geek Squad coverage, I came out paying less than half of what the Apple Superdrive costs... I definitely made the right choice!

Very happy with the CD player. It plugs into my ThinkPad laptop and plays my CDs great ! the view is wonderful and the sound is wonderful too ! I have CDs that I need to play for my College Classes and my College tutoring. Also I may need to make a CD to share !! Also I have old music CDs that I can play and down load to my computer then copy onto my phone, also I can create a great music CD with various music on them, and family can play on their computer or in car. Also, many kinds of workouts such as Kettle Bell are on CDs, and the CD player plays them well, with great view and great music, so the workout is great ! I am extremely happy with the CD player and the Best Buy Geek Squad assistance helping me choose the CD player, setting it up and making sure I knew how to use it and was happy with it !!

I was never a fan of LG for drives before, but I found this to be less expensive (was on sale for $24.99 before tax); than other brands like Verbatim, Lenovo, Dell and HP ($10.00 to $40.00 lower). Although more pricier than my initial budget I decided to give it a try based on cost only. To my surprise it was readily recognized when I connected it to my PC. My only concern now is durability and longevity. This portable LG external DVD writer with: 8x DVD and 24x CD write speeds is not bad so far. PROS: Multiformat support - 8x External Double-Layer DVD±RW/CD-RW Drive For DVD+R/R DL/RW, DVD-R/R DL/RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-ROM, DVD-ROM DL, CD-R/RW/ROM and CD-DA media. CON: USB 2.0 only

This drive is inexpensive but a solid performer. There is really nothing to ding it on except that it is a light-weight external drive. Being an external drive makes it a bit of an awkward thing to deal with if you don't put it on a desk with extra space. My wife and I take my laptop with us on trips and watch movies on it using the drive. We will often lay in bed with the laptop on my legs and play a movie. The drive, then, has no stable platform for it to rest on. This isn't an issue with this drive alone. It is an issue with all external drives. The problem really comes in due to the light-weight nature of the drive. While this is a plus for carrying it from place to place, it makes it even less stable without a desk to put it on. Aside from this (minor) issue, I have absolutely no complaints about this drive.

I needed an optical drive as my 2018 Mac (as well as my work MBP) does not have one. This was primarily to pull archived MP3 data of albums burned for storage long ago. On sale for $20 - the LG was a no brainer. For Mac, none of the included software is required.. fires right up (in my case USB-A>USB-C).. Reads everything I’ve thrown at it so far.. Data discs took a little longer, but got there. 4 stars because the build quality is a little suspect. The pictures imply a metallic housing, but it’s most definitely shiny plastic. I’ve had great luck with LG.. and this seems to be no exception. Recommended!

In all fairness, I just purchased a new Lenovo laptop that was not loaded with extra software, and as was typical with the laptops I was looking at, it did not have a DVD drive built in. When I purchased the external DVD I expected it to play a DVD. I have been unable to to that. There was no problem transferring software files from the drive onto the laptop, but the main reason for the purchase was not achievable. I was told I would have no problem accomplishing my desire. Wrong. Not all of us are streaming all of our movies. There are many times when being able to play a DVD is far easier than streaming (I.e. In the car). I do not use public wifi because my laptop has too much personal info on it and I'm not willing to risk being compromised. All in all, the unit seems rather fragile and it didn't do what I was told it would do. Maybe I was just given bad info by the salesman.

So, I have a laptop that doesn't have a disc drive. I was browsing an immediately compatible Dell product that seemed great, but at a suggestion of convenience, I settled on this at the behest of a (employee who could not string together a coherent english sentence), answering our question of "Will this install software on the computer it's connected to?" with his answer of "Uhhh... um, yes." Bad move buying this. I got the software all set up and ready to go, and the thing locks up halfway through. The software disc it comes with actually makes it read any disc put into the tray as not existing, and if I uninstall the software, the discs become temporarily readable, before vanishing from it's detection again. No matter what I do with it, this reader/writer will not play/use any discs, let alone function AT ALL. We're returning it as soon as possible, and I'm very annoyed at the employee who was barely understandable who suggested it.

I tried the simple test of plugging in the LG into the USB port on my Windows 10 laptop and playing some music. The laptop recognized the drive without having to load any software or drivers. I was able to play CD's with Windows Media player, again without installing anything. The one disappointment is that every half dozen CDs or so I hit a track that played fine on the internal CD player of my old laptop but fails to play on this drive. To be fair, they are older CDs with a few scratches. The USB cable seems to be about 20" long. It's a bit stiff, like most new USB cables. It's longer than I thought it would be, plenty long for me. The drive comes with CyberLink Media Suite for DVD and backup software. I've not tried playing a DVD yet, but I don't think I'll need to use anything other than what came with the drive to play them.

This started out as a great item. It worked well, and then suddenly, my laptop stopped recognizing it. I tried jiggling the connector cord, and that worked pretty well, for a while. However, the socket was loose, and eventually pushed itself all the way into the unit, not making contact with the plug at all. I took it apart and tried to get the socket back to its normal location. I made sure I had it in the correct direction for the contacts,and it tried to come back to life, but the socket would not stay in place. I considered soldering it in place, but the contacts are so tiny that I'm pretty sure solder would just ruin it the rest of the way. If anyone knows of a good substitute for solder that can be used in tiny, almost microscopic applications, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!

Unfortunately with new laptops nowadays, they don't include a disk drive. Even those that do are generally region locked and I do tend to purchase DVDs that would be from other regions. I did research to try and find a good DVD disk drive that was region free but it was rather difficult. I finally came across this DVD drive and since it was on sale, I decided to give it a try. It works perfectly well with playing DVDs from other regions and relatively small and lightweight so it won't be a hassle to carry around. If there is one con, while it does feel durable, you should probably get a carrying case for it just to make sure it's safe. Other than that, I adore this and can't wait to take it with me on the go!

I have had this drive for about a year and a half. It has served me well for it's use. Pulling data off CD's, Playing DVD's, writing DVD's. It is a plug and play device and works well for that. I had a couple times that it would not read CD's or DVD's but other drives would. Eye is more sensitive to scratches. The main problem that I encountered was that the charger port eventually broke. It has always been a weak point and finally gave out making the drive useless. I got about 18 Months of light use out of it, so take it for what it's worth. Packs Easy Works Pretty Well Sensitive to Scratches Charger port weak point

I was a little skeptical at first. This DVD/CD player and burner was marked at such a low price, I figured something had to be wrong with. However, I took it out of the box and didn’t even need to read any instructions. It was fairly self-explanatory. I wanted to catalog my CD collection, since it’s all digital now and goes with you in our pocket computers. I haven’t had any issues whatsoever, it has worked great and for only 20 bucks, there is no way another one could come close!

I purchased this as part of a deal, when my son purchased his laptop. His came with a cd/dvd reader/burner. I had been for awhile for a cd/dvd burner; but had not yet pulled the trigger. My new laptop did not come with an internal one, as some are no longer providing. I do still need one for burning and mostly to copy cd's that I own or purchase to add to my music collection. While it is not the fastest available, the price was great and with the package discount of 20%, the price and the device were more than adequate for my needs. If you need very high speed, for some reason, then I would suggest that you look at the faster version of this; but if just using for copying, etc. it is fine.

My TV broke so I'm using my laptop, that hadn't been used at all for around 6 years. I already knew the DVD, cd unit didn't work and I had purchased a external USB unit before I didn't like it much and of course it disappeared. So I needed a new one. I knew if I went to cheap it would be a mess working with it. So I wanted to get somewhere in the middle market units. This unit works very well that I'm actually using it every day. Doesn't even seem that it's bothered by being on my bed vs a desk. I've been enjoying watching all my DVDs again. This player is the right one for me. It's not flimsy like it would break quickly. It's just right.

I LOVE this drive as it does exactly what I needed and what it was promised to do! Admittedly I was at first worried that this wouldn't work because of some of the negative reviews I've read online but it worked flawlessly for me. Granted I'm only using it to import all of my CDs that accidently got deleted from my iPod Nano from iTunes, but it operated just fine as my computer,an Inspiron 17,was able to detect it without any issue or extra steps. Though the instructions were not helpful at all in the setup as all I did was plug it into the USB port, thanks to a tip from another person who bought this drive as well.

This is the second one I have bought in a short period of time. The CD drive on my computer cannot be repaired by Geek Squad and I have not found a convenient time to go without my computer for a ccuple of weeks to send it to HP. The disc spins so long I wonder if it is working. The first external drive was hardly used when I got a message Windows does not recognize the device. I used the disc to reinstall but got the same message. Geek Squad could not repair so I bought another one at Best Buy that now sells for half of what I paid for the first one. Because I do not use it often, I would like it to last more than the time by the warranty

My laptop is a Dell xps 15 9570 and is lacking an optical drive and most laptops that are light are getting away from internal built drives. I use Nero and Roxio as program sources and have made one BD disk from a 4k movie. Have an expansion port which has 4 SS 3.0 usb and other end has male usb which plugs into the female usb port on laptop. Then connected the 2 male usb into the 2 female usb ports on expansion card. The optical drive recognized cd, dvd dvd dual dvd (+,-) as well as DVD RAM, BD RE, and BD-R) the only one I could not test was BD DL since I didn't have the media. Speeds were comparable to what each medium indicated on label.