Ready to buy an external DVD drive? Like any consumer electronics, there are a number of categories that you should consider before making a purchase. Decide which of the following are important to you (if any) before making your purchase, and you will end up with a drive that suits your needs.

The pricing of these drives is very competitive, and often to get the features you want, the price difference will be minimal.

Supported Media Early drives would only support one type of DVD format. If you get an older drive, your DVD +R disk will not work in your DVD -R drive. Most new drives support multiple formats and some even support Blu-ray and HD DVD.
Write Speeds External DVD drives come in a variety of write speeds. Unless you plan on doing tons of burning of DVDs, or you just have no patience, write speed is not critical.
Buffer Memory Larger buffer size is better. Some external DVD drives offer up to 16MB buffer size, which is far more than you need. Once again, it comes down to a speed issue.
Physical Size If you plan on carrying a burner with your laptop, you probably want one that is small. The dimensions for these drives are usually given in inches.
Interface A DVD burner that uses FireWire or high speed USB is better than on that just uses standard USB. The USB interface also provides the power for the unit in most cases. Some laptops will have insufficient power to run the DVD drive, so if you have a laptop, and you think this might be an issue, you may want to buy one that comes with an AC adapter as well.
Supported Operating Systems Make sure your machine will support the drive.
System requirements Unless you have a really old computer or you are buying a really new high end drive, this is usually not an issue, but it is always good to check.
Other Considerations There are other technologies such as LightScribe that give the burner the ability to make a label right on your DVD. You will need a LightScribe-enabled burner and LightScribe DVD's as well as LightScribe software.

Overview Make a checklist of what is important to you in a DVD drive, and find a site with detailed reviews of DVD drives and make sure the model you are looking at buying has the features that you want.