HP External Portable Slim Design CD/DVD RW Write/Read Drive, USB, Black (F2B56AA)

easy to connect, install, worked perfect.

I wanted a brand name one.

I never, well, almost never, do reviews. The exception I'm making is because of the story of External CD/DVD drives here in the First State: Background story -- Up until 3 years ago, I always had PC's (Windows) with a built-in CD/DVD. However when my ancient Dell PC died all my preferred computers no longer had the built-in drive. Summer '22 I bought my first ext. CD/DVD drive -- it died in 3 months and was a pain to install; repeat-rinse, I bought another 3 with same results. My mistake looking back is that I assumed all such ext. drives would be equal so I think I got some off-brand Chinese thing. Lesson learned, I researched and came across this HP drive. I've used HP printers since 1998, and a few laptops that lasted years. SO...I picked this drive and it's perfect. It was truly plug and play. I paid a bit more, but buying by a brand I trust and have had good experiences with -- happy camper here. Lesson learned is, of course, do my due diligence next time....Drive is very quiet as well.

We connected it into a USB port on a desktop with Windows 11 OS. It started right up and was immediately functional. Good speed when either recording on a DVD or on playback. Our setup has it on top of the computer cabinet and so it takes both hands to hold it steady while inserting or changing a disc. This is slightly inconvenient and the reason we didn't give it 5 stars. Nice little unit that solved the problem not having a built-in player in the new desktop we had purchased.

I read some reviews that said the drive was too fragile or doesn't work properly. First of all, it is an external disk drive so yes, it will be a bit fragile. After all it is a disk drive, not a hammer. I am gentle with mine and have no problem. Secondly, it works fine for me. I plugged it into my computers USB port and no other installation was required. With that said, I am running a Dell Latitude laptop with Windows 10 and a USB 3.0 for hardware. Nothing fancy. Yes, the drive does make some noise, as expected. The drive is very compact and thin meaning there is nothing to insulate the drive motor noise. However, it is not a complaint just an observation. The ejection mechanism is simple, it just pops open after touching the eject button. It works basically the same as the built in drive on my 2012 Asus but the Dell does not have a disk drive so this fits my needs perfectly. Be advised it will play standard DVD's but not Blue ray or 4k. Yes, it loads and installs CD ROMs just fine. If you have laptop with no disk drive, this is a good value.

It met my needs, since my computer is without a disk reader. I did have a hard time getting the plastic packaging off.

Nice slim profile. Most importantly, ripped CDs that others wouldn't.

First, I was disappointed with the lack of any installation instructions included with the product, so I had to go online to HP's website to download a user's manual. The User Manual refers to red and blue LED lights as power indicators, but they don't exist. I admit to being a novice user, but this has been an extremely frustrating experience. So far, I'm very disappointed and may have to return the product.