After researching on Amazon about this type of product as my new laptop has no mechanical burners, I settled on this one because it has Thunderbolt connection (USB-c with higher speeds) as my laptop has USB-c/Thunderbolt connections. I also noticed it has what appears to be aluminum trim piece (painted plastic?) on the top. There is also an included carrying case as well. Item arrived one day after my order which is one day earlier than anticipated. What I thought was an aluminum trim piece is truly aluminum so that should add to durability. Pressing the single button on front releases the CD/DVD tray and the construction of this tray is more substantial than those typically included on laptops. You have to manually push the drawer closed to engage the locking mechanism. I just had to use the cable (labelled USB Data Cable) that has a USB-c/Thunderbolt/USB-3 on one end and a combo "Micro" connection on the other that plugs directly to the "Micro" connection on the back of the unit. Plugging the USB-c connection to my laptop provides power and data transfer bidirectionally. My laptop recognized this drive immediately and every time I reconnected this drive. I had just finish a recording of a classical concert in our home and had bought this to create CDs for attendees. So far I have burned, ripped and played CDs without problems. I have burned many CDs and as yet have not created coffee cup coasters. I have tried the SD card slot and that was recognized and I was able to play directly from this drive. Have not tried the Micro SD slot nor the other USB-3 connections yet. I would have to say I find no faults with this unit. Highly recommended. Read more
I have a computer that does not have a CD drive. This product makes it easy to use CDs—plug and play, and the price was reasonable. Read more
Only worked with my windows 10 laptop, not with my chromebook. Read more
I was kind of lost when I opened the box but found this little gem to be plug-n-play. This is so easy I have already loaded 3 programs into my laptop. This unit comes with a nice padded and zippered case with both cords. USB 3.0 Type-C CD/DVD ROM +/-RW Burner Reader Writer with SD/TF Slot & 2 USB, Portable Optical Disc Drive DVD Player for Laptop PC Desktop Windows 11. All in all this means I can now burn music to a disk, watch dvd's and load files to my PC. Very happy. Read more
Works good for CD's. Must note that you must plug into laptop or other device directly. Read more
I bought this earlier this year for a project of ripping our family DVDs to mp4s so I could store them in the cloud. It sat in the box until yesterday (well past the return policy). It times out on most attempts and is flakey at best. The DVD player will play the DVDs, so I know they are not damaged. Handbrake times out, I tried creating ISO images from the DVDs in hopes of transcoding from an ISO image and Disk Utility times out as well. Not sure if its the cheap cable or the actual unit itself. Hard pass for those with OSX thinking about this. I wish I still had a super drive. UPDATE: Same flakey behavior with a paid MacX DVD Ripper Pro. I've tried both the USB-C adapter and the USB-A (with an external A-C adapter) AND providing external power, all same behavior. UPDATE: After getting frustrated with this piece of junk, I ordered an Apple Superdrive (like I should have in the first place). Right out of the box, the superdrive will recognize and autoplay a DVD within seconds, vs the minutes it took this crappy Guamar. I've successfully ripped multiple family DVDs since opening the Superdrive box a few hours ago. Read more
I ordered this particular external drive because it included a carry case and appeared to be made better than some of the multitudes of cheaper drives available (i.e., includes a read/write light). I have used it so far on my Windows 10 Desktop and my MacBook Pro Mid-2015 laptop. Both machines detected the drive however it only worked on my Mac using the left-hand USB port. (I'm not sure if there are different voltages between the right and left ports.) I use the drive primarily to digitize my collection of music CDs. I installed no software for the drive and used existing installations of XLD on the Mac and MediaMonkey 5 on Windows with no issues whatsoever. I will try to use this on my newer machines but for now I'm giving this drive a perfect score: Well made, truly plug and play, as quick as my internal drives and very happy I picked this unit. Read more
Used to read music cds only. Did not use for any other purpose. No burning. No reading dvds, etc. It worked out of the box as advertised. Shortly afterwards it did its own thing, disconnecting/reconnecting from the laptop, not ejecting the disk no matter what method I used, and so on. Finally figured out that the cable connection on the drive side (not the usb side) of the drive cable was causing problems The slightest bump, thermal change, or breath of wind, would cause the connection to break. It is working fine now so long as the cable and drive are not moved in any way. Gave it 3 stars due to my frustration for having to do re-work each time it acts up, and reading cds is a pretty basic function. More than frustrating. Read more
