Toshiba Portable SuperMulti Drive PA3834U-1DV2

For a portable drive this one is the best. It's dirt cheap, plays and writes everything except Blu-Ray (who cares). You do not need to load the optional software if you have Windows Vista or 7. Yes, it does take two USB ports that are side by side to run. How do you close it without crunching it...you just either put your fingers behind it and slide the disc shut or hold it by the sides with one hand and push the drawer back in. No need to press down on the top of it and crush it but you can put a enough pressure up there too without any problem. Yes it's plastic and could be discontorted if you pushed really hard. While running a movie it is a bit loud sounding like a tiny fan on high speed but nothing that concerned me. This will run your laptop/netbook battery down more quickly so it's best for movies while the machine is plugged in. Bottom line. It's meant to be portable, light, and run everything except Blu-Ray. It does exactly that without fail.

Got this for my fiance whose PC has a very slow and uncooperative CD-RW drive. This does everything he would care for it to do, does it fast, and works. That it requires two neighboring USB ports is not a problem for him because he is not using it for portability. However, the portability is a plus because we also have a netbook (with no optical drive built in, of course) so it serves dual purposes when we need to backup data or install software on either device. Thinking of buying another one for my parents.

Perfect companion for my Portege Z935! No power cords - although it uses 2 USB ports but this does not bother me, compact and easy to carry, doesn't feel that flimsy considering it is made out of plastic, tested it with a couple DVD for read/write and worked flawlessly, 1/3 of the price that BB wanted to charge me for it, it is the recommended accessory for my laptop... really, what can one want more? I don't have a high usage for it, got it about a week ago, hope it will last!

The internal DVD drive on our PC broke down, so we try this instead of getting a new internal drive. It works great!!! Plays all our DVDs. Just plug and play. To us in terms of speed, there is no difference between this and an internal drive. It plays all our DVDs. It does come with a software (Burn Now), to burn DVDs; although we have not tried to burn a DVD yet. Also it comes with WinDVD for watching DVDs, but it stinks, so we just use Windows Media to watch DVDs. Windows Media detects it automatically as soon as the DVD is inserted.

As the title of my review suggests, I really liked this burner from Toshiba, when it was working correctly. Installation was a breeze, just connect the USB Y-cable to 2 ports and you're ready to go. The first few burns were great, all using the exact same Verbatim media. Then around the 5th burn or so, the burner only allowed me to select 2x burning speed. Using the same media, the next time it allowed me to select up to 8x. This is a seemingly random occurrence and I can't find a reason for it. Also, when I check the burns and backup my media, the program I use will 50/50 allow the dvds burned on this unit to open all way, usually freezing at 99% before throwing up an error. I have used several different burners from Samsung and LG, and this Toshiba is the first to ever give me this problem. It doesn't affect the playability on dvd players, but it does prevent me from backing up dvds created with this burner. The random burning speed allowed and hit and miss of the readability of the burned discs on my PC offset the positives of a quiet, solidly constructed and reasonably priced dvd burner. I'll stick with the similarly priced but slightly louder Samsung burner.

I am happy with my purchase of this item. I bought this product to use with my Toshiba netbook and it works really well. Upon connection of this device to my netbook, it was instantly recognized. Good sound and quality. The product seems sturdy and durable. One thing to note is that it requires two USB ports side by side for connection to your computer. This was not a problem for me, since my netbook has this feature. however, this can also be resolved through the use of a multi-USB port device.

Purchased this drive a year ago. Worked GREAT (5 stars) until I switched to Windows 8. Now, it does not work and I cannot find any drivers to support this drive under Win 8 (1 star). That is huge as i now must purchase a new drive or roll my ultra book back to Windows 7. If you are running win 7, this is a great little drive. If you have windows 8, do not buy this drive at this time. Get something that will run under win 8. Just my 2 cents. IF Toshiba releases an updated driver for win 8 and it works, I will revise my review. until then 1 star

I am not a computer geek, but this was simple and easy for me to install. Worked great right out of the box. Light weight and compact. Great for playing DVDs and for writing to DVD disks. It requires 2 USB ports which may be an issue for some. If I had to buy again, I would still choose this one.

Don't waste your money. I used it five times before it quit working. The CD tray wouldn't stay shut, it makes an ungodly noise when it decides to work and the build quality is garbage. I give it one star because that's as low as I can go. I use it as a doorstop now. Even then it doesn't work well for that task either. Look elsewhere.

Great, light weight and easy to use