I have a Dell Latitude D620, a business computer bought off-lease that is several years old. The computer came with a CD-ROM driver, which is useless in the age of DVDs. Buying this inexpensive CD-DVD drive enabled me to use DVD installation disks for several programs. Installation was a snap, since Dell made this a plug and play 'module' that just slides in and out of the chassis with the click of a button.
Feb 07, 2011
A great way to speed up a cheap laptop!
I bought this drive (after a lot of thought) as a replacement for the 320GB drive that came with my low-end laptop. I struggled with the idea of 'downsizing' my drive so drastically -- but the results have been fantastic! The Windows boot-up time has been cut down to about 20-25 seconds. This one benefit has made the drive worth the investment because I cut my laptop on and off frequently and 'hate the wait' that comes with system startup. As other reviewers have commented, it is pricey compared to a traditional hard drive. This 80GB drive would not do, either, for a gamer, graphic designer, or other person using lots of disk space to store media files. However, I doubt that gamers, graphic designers, or heavy media users would buy my $400 laptop either. This drive gives me the illusion that I am using a faster machine, which is OK by me. The only issue I had with the drive is that there was a bad sector on it that kept the drive from loading Windows successfully. I finally tried loading Linux in desperation so that I could use the laptop and the Linux installation program isolated the bad sector. I was then able to erase the Linux OS and install Windows 7 with no problem. With Windows 7, my programs, and my files loaded I still have over 50GB of space on the drive -- so I think that this drive will serve the purpose for awhile. The only reason I wouldn't rate it 'excellent' is that, at $125 for an 80GB drive, it is still pricey enough to make you weigh the pros and cons carefully before buying.