Setting up this drive was, for the most part, a breeze. Install the software, plug in the drive, attach it to the computer, and restart. But, not any ordinary restart will do. You must complete a "power cycle" or the drive will not be recognized.

The setup may be fairly easy, but that doesn't necessarily mean using it is. The software that ships with this drive, CharisMac's Discribe, is not the most intuitive program ever. It does get the job done, just not elegantly.

The manual for this software comes as a PDF file, and a very small paper insert that really doesn't give any information. My suggestion is to print out the manual, because you will need it the first few times you burn CDs.

Discribe let's you burn in many different ways. You can build a disk, copy discs, direct CD to CD copies, make bootable discs, make hybrid discs, plus more. Each type of burn requires a different set of steps, which makes a printed manual even more helpful.

Nearly all the types of burns work flawlessly, after the key to burning is figured out. "The key to burning" is unplugging all or most of the other USB devices while burning. The only type of burn that doesn't always work is direct CD to CD copies (see Problems below).

But, the software doesn't make up the entire burner, you can't forget about the device itself. The drive is built with quality in mind. It is very sturdy, has a large protective casing around the drive itself, and has blueberry colored feet for stability.

This drive also comes with stuff you normally find on normal CD drives. On the front, you have a headphone jack with a volume control. On the back, there are RCA connectors for two channel analog audio. Also, something that we Mac users are accustomed to, but PC users may not be, is the paper-clip hole for ejecting stuck CDs.

One minor caveat with this drive is the "power cycle." Each time you restart your Mac, you must power down, and power up the drive, before the extensions start loading. Without doing this, your drive will not be recognized, and another restart will be required. This power cycle takes a little getting used to, but not a big problem.

Update: This drive works great with Apple's new DiscBurn software. By disabling all Discribe extensions, and installing DiscBurn, creating CDs is as easy as writing to a floppy drive.

The main problem with this drive is that it doesn't work well when other USB devices are plugged in. I had to make sure all of my other devices were unplugged, before starting to burn a CD. This is kind o fa pain, but is an almost sure-fire wokaround.

The other problem comes in with direct CD to CD copies. You can copy a CD directly from one drive, to another, but that usually doesn't work. If the CD being copied has a lot of data, it has a tendency to spin down, which will result in the CD to stop being written. This will cause a coaster every time. The workaround for this is to use copy the CD to the hard drive before making the duplicate.

For the money spent on the drive, I can live with the slower speed. It takes approximately 17 min to burn a 650 MB CD. This is about twice as long as some SCSI and Firewire drives. Also, after I figured out the key of how to get good burns, I only get about 1 in twenty coasters. A decent burner for a great price.

Pros	Cons
Fastest USB CD burner available High quality hardware Protective shell around drive Cross Platform Headphone and RCA jacks	Slower than SCSI and Firewire Doesn't play well with other USB devices Software is difficult to use Requires power cycle for every restart
6/10 stars