The second highest performer over all, the Plextor was the only submitted drive to support DVD writing higher than 4x, boasting an incredible 8x DVD+R burning capability

One of only two external DVD writers submitted for testing this month, this multi-format drive has you covered for all your archive and burning needs.

HP is attempting to reverse the stigma associated with external drives being slower than EIDE counterparts by not only supplying both USB 2.0 and FireWire, but by burning at the same 4x speeds as fixed devices.

As this Labs’ sole available proponent of the –RW format, Pioneer has a struggle on its hands getting the public to accept the standard over the faster and more widely used +RW format.

The Sony offers a comprehensive bundle, although it omits such niceties as IDE and audio cables.

The Ricoh MP5125A-DP drive is actually used by the other DVD+RW supporters, although they rebrand them as their own. AOpen and HP have both taken this route, and use the Ricoh as their base.

The Sony CRX85U external USB 2.0 is even smaller than the Plextor and the Iomega Predator models, and given its square shape and thin profile, as well as the top loading pop-up lid for the CD, you could be forgiven for thinking that this CD-RW drive was just a DiskMan.

Supporting a maximum 12-speed burning, though without BURN-Proof, the AOpen CRW-1232 still manages to put on an outstanding show...

While BURN-Proof technology has recently become very popular, it is not the only method for preventing buffer underruns. Ricoh has developed its own method, called Just Link.