It also includes an audio cable you can connect to your sound card so you can listen to music on the CD-R drive while using your CD-ROM for other tasks.

CNN: IDG.net - Recordable and rewritable CD drives: Permanent, portable storage

Teac's 4X12 is our favorite CD-R drive.

CNN: IDG.net - Recordable and rewritable CD drives: Permanent, portable storage

Next week at Comdex, Verbatim will roll out the 4420, which the company claims is the first CD-RW drive that offers 4X write on both CD-R and CD-RW media. (Current drives are limited to 2X write speeds for CD-RW.) The drive reads CD-ROMs, CD-R, and CD-RW media at 20X.

CNN: Verbatim to ship first 4X CD-RW drive

We had the worst experiences with Ricoh's Media Master MP-6200S, a CD-RW drive, and MicroNet's Master CD Plus 4X12PC, a CD-R model.

CNN: IDG.net - Recordable and rewritable CD drives: Permanent, portable storage

We then install each drive, noting any difficulties, and load the bundled software for CD-R and CD-RW writing.

CNN: Top 5 CD-rewritable drives