I bought and was disappointed when I unpacked it with a USB Y cable. Then I was delighted to see that it worked just fine with a normal USB A-B cable. Then I was disappointed again when I found that ANY disc (CD or DVD) burned without the Y cable did not work. Windows and OSX reported that it burned successfully, but discs either won't play or sometimes even show up as blank in whatever device I use them.

The same USB port on my HP tower works just fine to power and read/write data on my external hard drive, but if I plug in the DVD burner instead I get crap results. The Y cable works just fine, I'd be OK with it at my office, but there is NO way it would work with the MBA USB ports being on opposite sides of the computer. The Y cable is only about 2 feet long and the split part of it can only be separated to span 6-7 inches. Quckbooks backup from mac for windows.

Find the top 100 most popular items in Amazon Electronics Best Sellers. External CD Drive USB 3.0 Portable Slim External DVD Drive, Gipow External. Drive, USB 3.0 DVD RW Row Burner Drive Writer Player for Windows, Mac OS.

I decided to fork out the extra money for the Superdrive and haven't looked back. Even on Windows it works well. I never pay attention to burn times though, so I can't vouch for any speed. Click to expand.Although I've only handled a few of the models, they're all equally durable in my opinion. My suggestion then is to go buy one from a local store such as MicroCenter or Best Buy; that way you have someone to go to for an exchange or a refund if it breaks after 50 CDs.

For real durability, try to look for the external drives that are based off desktop hardware. They're much bigger: usually 8+ inches long and 2 inches tall; and always require a power adapter. However, because the drives are 5' drives intended for desktop use, they will certainly be more durable than the slim ones based off of laptop drives. Hey everyone, I just wanted to suggest a method that is completely free if you have another computer with a disk drive. Here's the link: Credits go to GGJstudios who posted this in one of my threads. I'm not sure if this will work for bootcamp but should be fine for installing software.

Or you can create disk images on another computer and then put those on a USB, although this method is relatively complicated and time consuming but this method should work for bootcamp. Disclaimer: I am not encouraging the use of illegal file sharing etc. And this method should only be used for software that allows it.