Pros: Works on the Dell XPS 8300 PC without the semaphore time out issue that some USB burner USB bridges have with certain USB controllers on the motherboard of some PC's. Works under Windows 7 64 bit SP 1 with native drivers.

Cons: It has the same con as all LiteOn's I've ever used. On 8x DVD+RW discs, it does not immediately go to 8x when writing. It starts out capped at 4x, then increases to 6x, and finally to 8x. I had a 1 GB test image in ImgBurn with Ritek 8x DVD+RW and it didn't make it to 8x because not enough time had elapsed to reach 8x. There wasn't enough data to burn long enough to get to 8x.

Overall Review: My only real issue with the drive is how they designed it to be sitting on its side. You can only stand it on one side. So, if you need it face to the left, it won't because when it stands, it faces to the right. On my desktop, I had to place the drive on the far right. So, I have to reach around to put discs into the tray.

Pros: Writes to a wide variety of media at rated or higher speeds. 8x Verbatim DVD+R DL writes at 8x for a good deal of the time. 6x Verbatim BD-R write at about 10x. Writes to Memorex Ritek BD-RE without errors.

Cons: Does not write properly to rewritable DVD media. 8x Ridata DVD+RW will finish writing but the PS 3 often times doesn't detect they are inserted. Attempts to write to discs after this fail. DVD-RW requires full formatting in a LiteOn drive if they are written to with this LG drive if you want to use them again in a Panasonic DVD recorder. Drive stopped writing to DVD+R DL media properly after a year and 2 months.

Overall Review: This drive was good for most use. It just can't properly handle rewritable DVD media. Unlike the LiteOn Blu-Ray drive it replaced, there were no skipping issues with DVD+R DL media.

Pros: None.

Cons: Stopped writing to Memorex Ritek BD-RE that it had been writing to before after only 3 months. Stopped writing to a Sony BD-RE after 5 writes. DVD+R DL does not burn right. Has skipping issues.

Overall Review: This drive swore me off of LiteOns after my previous experience with using LiteOn for years. My previous drive was a DVD burner that I had to send back to NewEgg for a replacement because it didn't write to good Verbatim DVD-R media correctly. Then, my next LiteOn was this piece of junk Blu-Ray burner that also didn't work right out of the box. Got an LG for my next Blu-Ray drive. It had limitations but was much better than this drive.

Pros: No problem reading a data CD to an image file. No problem burning a 16x Verbatim DVD-R.

Cons: Does not write at 8x to 8x Verbatim DVD+R DL for a desired length of time. The first one I wrote mostly wrote at 6x with some 8x write time, but hardly worth noting. The write rate was all over the place, dropping to 4x, up to 6x, sometimes 8x, down to 0, up to 6, and ended at 4. Second Verbatim DVD+R DL only wrote at 4x the entire time. Could not find any firmware anywhere online for this drive, so I can't test to see if a firmware update would help with these issues.

Overall Review: I've not tested this drive for rewritable media or Blu-Ray media but my test results on good Verbatim 8x DVD+R DL do not indicate this drive is worth purchasing. I'd just as soon go back to LG, which has its own problems. My LG Blu-Ray drive stopped writing DVD+R DL's correctly after a year and it never properly wrote to rewritable DVD media.

Pros: Had no prolems with burns to multiple media types for about 2 months.

Cons: Stopped writing to certain media, like rewritable DVD discs, after 2 months.

Overall Review: My last Optiarc, the 7241s, behaved the exact same way. Burned fine for about 2 months to all media, then stopped writing to some media, like rewritable DVD discs, after that. I used to use NEC/Optiarc/Sony for a long time. Back when the drives lasted me 2 years, on average. However, my last 2 Optiarc's died after only 2 months. I tried a LiteOn burner after this one and it still works fine after 3 months, so, I don't think it's anything in my system that was causing it.