External enclosure for multi-recorder? Or external DVD?

[Jaimi]

Does anyone know of an external USB enclosure that would work with the ultrabay slim DVD multiburner? If not, perhaps could you recommend an external DVD that is powered off the USB?

I've just put in a new ultrabay slim hd drive (replacing my DVD), with the thought that I would just swap as needed. However (as is usually the case) I find that I need both at the same time.

Thanks!

[Ken Fox]

Does anyone know of an external USB enclosure that would work with the ultrabay slim DVD multiburner? If not, perhaps could you recommend an external DVD that is powered off the USB?

I've just put in a new ultrabay slim hd drive (replacing my DVD), with the thought that I would just swap as needed. However (as is usually the case) I find that I need both at the same time.

Thanks!

There is no practical and cost effective way to use an ultrabay optical drive outside of a Thinkpad or a Thinkpad docking station.

There has been reference to a slim optical writer that works off USB bus power on other threads, but when I have searched for it by model number or brand (was it a Plextor? I forget) the model was not offered for sale in N. America, only in Europe and possibly Asia. To my knowledge there are no optical drives you can buy in N. America which are USB bus powered, and if there were I'd have concerns about current draw and reliability.

If you need the drive to be lightweight and mobile, there are options of complete USB 2 slim drives that sell with power adapters, sold by Liteon and Plextor and Sony. You can buy a separate optical slim drive USB2 case from places like Meritline.com (and others) and put an internal slim drive into it, which can be bought from a number of vendors including Newegg. If you don't need a lightweight and mobile optical drive you will be much better off buying a fullsize optical USB2 drive, which will be cheaper, faster, and much more reliable than the slim versions. Even these are not so big and heavy that you could not move them around from time to time, say between your home and office.

Liteon makes some nice ones that were around $80 the last time I checked. I have one of those that works flawlessly with my desktop.