Optical drives are cheap.  In my experience, you could buy a DVD burner to install in your other machine for what you would pay for a good USB enclosure alone.  That is, if your other machine has a bay to accept it.  If it won't, your best bet would probably be a firewire external DVD burner.  If you don't have a firewire connection in that laptop and have to get a USB, be sure its not an old, slow 1.0 version, but at least a 2.0.  A networked burner would indeed be quite slow (and more cumbersome (to me - I like simple)).  

Check out Ebay, but also checkout newegg.com - if you check frequently or sign up for their sale/rebate notifications, they have frequent and very good brief sales/rebates on many different items (instant rebates).  Sometimes their prices are equal to or better than Ebay and you have the company standing behind the product.  I bought essentially all the parts for my current computer from newegg.   

If you do decide to put your present drive in a USB enclosure (this may apply to fireware also, I don't know), there are a couple of things for you to consider...  

(1) Some have to have external power, which means a transformer that has to be plugged into your house current - 
    Advantages: they usually have an on/off switch so you can leave them attached all the time and, more importantly, they usually have a cooling fan.
    Disadvantage: the transformer, of course - I hate those things, they put out elf radiation and always feel warm, plus its one more dang cord!  Less portable. 

(2) Some get their power via the computer through the USB connection
    Advantage: only one cord, easily transporatable (important with laptops).  
    Disadvantage: usually no cooling fan (although fans and switches are probably more important with HDDs, I just like having cooling fans)  

Also, some are easier to install drives in than others, but I'm not sure how you could tell that in advance.  Newegg does have a section on each item where past purchasers have reviewed the product, which is a good resource even if you buy it somewhere else.  There are buttons for  1-month, 6-month, and overall reviews.  If its hard to install a unit in the enclosure, you can be sure people will be complaining about it in the review section.   Hope this info helps you,    --AnnaSummers


Steve Howe wrote:
> I have two laptops running Windows XP, one with optical drive, one
without.  Is it  possible to use optical drive (read and write CD, read DVD)
as external drive for computer without drive?
> Steve Howe

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