Thinkpads Forum

I am looking for an external optical drive for my thinkpad x60, and I came across two that look very good. The two actual drives all seem to have good reviews, but I can't find any info on the enclosures. They use a Li-ON rechargable battery to power the drive. Does anybody have any experience/info on these types of enclosures?

http://www.meritline.com/pioneer-dvr-k0 ... osure.html
http://www.meritline.com/panasonic-uj-8 ... drive.html
http://www.meritline.com/self-powered-s ... osure.html

The other option is to find a drive that can run off of one or more USB ports.

The X60 area of the forum has had a number of threads on the topic:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=31533
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=31241
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=28668
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=27888

There are numerous links to suggested drives.

I bought an NEC ND-6750A a put it into this enclosure:
http://www.thetechgeek.com/content/prod ... 44&cid=219

I can run DVDs and software CDs off of USB alone but I cannot run music CDs without plugging the drive into the wall.

Some external DVD drives/enclosures will come with a USB cable for data and some power and a second USB cable that supplies power. One of these might be they way to go if you want to be 100% sure you can run all types of media without connecting the device to a wall. You can probably google "external slim DVD" to come up with options. The posts also mention drives people have found that can run purely off USB.

Wow, thanks a lot for spending the time to give me all that info. In those links I found two great sites I never new about...
http://www.cooldrives.com/index.html
http://www.thetechgeek.com/index.htm

Thank God I am anal and actually enjoy doing research on computer parts, etc. If I wasn't this way I would never had taken all the important factors into account. For example, the amount of power it takes to spin the media for certain tasks without using ac power (while using power from the usb cable). I still think my best bet is to go with the following drive and enclosure...
http://www.meritline.com/panasonic-uj-8 ... drive.html

I figure the Li-On battery solution seems to be the best way to ensure that the drive receives enough power. Plus, the web site claims the following...Play back DVDs/CDs: 8 Hours or More. Even if this isn't entirely true, this enclosure will help the laptop conserve some power while I use the drive.

My next question, that I can't find a solid answer for, is if the actual drive will be compatible with the x60. These are the two drives:
Panasonic UJ-85J and Pioneer DVR-K06.