Buffalo DVSM-PN58U2

Product Survey: External optical burners

According to Buffalo, The DVSM-PN58U2 portable DVD burner is designed for professionals and people on the go who use a netbook. They've put a glossy housing around it for some extra pizazz. This type of finish is pretty standard these days - you find it on monitors, TVs, and notebook computers - so the Buffalo will blend right in with whatever else is grazing nearby. For power, Buffalo provides a USB "Y" cable, with one connector going to the drive itself, and two going to the computer. Of course the burner can operate with a single USB connector. The second one is used only if the USB port doesn't supply enough power. We'll see if it's really necessary to connect both USB cables to your netbook. The data-rate test was run on a Hercules eCAFE EC-900 XP. The transfer rate was no different with one USB cable than it was with two. Also, our test results for copying files from the DVD to the computer were very close from one unit to another - the difference was negligible. The results for ripping an ISO image of our test DVD, however, gave the Samsung a clear advantage.