Rioddas Portable USB 3.0 CD/DVD Drive

This external cd drive works as intended and is easy to store away when not needed.

This drive is exactly what I was looking for: a low cost, small profile and portable usb DVD reader.

The Pros: The drive is ready to go out of the box, and was plug and play with Windows 10 with USB-A. The drive works flawlessly and reads and writes etc. Small profile makes the drive very portable and convenient for those PRN computer techs out there. I did not notice significant noise from the device when reading or burning. The device worked with both full-sized and mini CD form factors. The device seemed responsive, with the eject button kicking out the disk in ~1 second.

The Cons: The drive comes with an abysmally short USB-A cord at around 8 inches/20 centimeters. Though this makes the drive more portable (+able to be tucked under the chassis), it makes the drive less ideal for common uses without an extender or USB hub. I feel like the short cord will cause many users to have to use sideways or tilted, which is not ideal. The only other possible complaint is the origin of the drive; as another reviewer has mentioned, the drive may or may not be pulled from a laptop, new, or refurbished and put into an external chassis. My drive showed up as an HP GU90N, which is a drive from a laptop that came out as early as 2013.

Conclusion: I would highly recommend this drive if you need a low cost, USB CD or DVD reader or burner +/- great portability.

This external cd drive works very well, has a very sleek and convenient form factor that makes it very portable and easy to store when not in use. It’s also rather fast- as it uses USB 3- and doesn’t skip when the drive is jossled or on a slightly uneven surface.

When I first got it I was a little confused as to how to plug it in before I turned it upsidedown and found that the cord was convienently stowed in a compartment on the bottom of the body of the drive. It was a little bit confusing to figure out how to pull it out and put it back away when I was done with the cord/drive but I figured it out. The trick is that there is a small piece of plastic in the place where the usb goes- and you need to make sure to put it in the right way and to slot it in first before putting in the rest of the cord.

While this storage and formfactor makes the external drive very portable, sleek, and storable it- however- makes it very difficult to find a good place to place it while in use. As the cable is increadibly short that does not give many options for locations you can put it while it’s plugged into your computer. Especially if your using a tower computer- like you see my my picture here- there just really isn’t any good place to place it other than ontop of the tower which makes it not very good if you have fans on the top of your computer. And also, another thing that I found issue with the drive was that the usb plug itself was very snug when I was plugging it in and especially as I was taking it out.

I imagine that the connection will break sooner than most devices and, unfortunately, the form factor and convienence factors will be null as the drive won’t even work anymore and you won’t be able to aquire a replacement cable for the drive. However, if you don’t unplug and plug it back in again alot/don’t overly use it then it’ll likely be fine. Just be aware and use precaution and always unplug it with the main part of the USB to avoid damaging the connection with that main part and the wire.

TL:DR
Pros;
*Convenient
*Portable
*Sleek pleasing form factor
*All one device without any extraneous cables
*Quick to use (no extra drivers or downloads of anything- a simple plug in and use)
*Doesn’t need to be completely flat to work
*Dvd inside doesn’t really get effected by anything but extreme disturbances

Cons;
*Very very short cable(see pictures)
*A little confusing to figure out where the cord is and how to put it back away at first(I don’t really count this one but I’m including it in my cons in case that’s a factor for you)
*Stiff usb plug in so be careful when unplugging/it’s a little annoying to plug in
*All one device- so if the cord gets disconnected from the usb plug you can’t replace it only get a new one.
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I recommend buying this product

I wanted to use it with a laptop that didn’t have an internal cd/dvd player. It worked just fine. I was even able to boot the laptop from it.