I am going to make a bet with myself that this drive will die within six months.  I’ll report back in six months if the drive is still working and by working I mean being able to read disks properly.

I hadn’t seen a reputable optical disk drive/burner since the days when Plextor still made their own hardware and when Pioneer had a slot-loading DVD drive.

I’m not crossing my fingers on this one.  I’ve found that I don’t need optical drives all that much, but every once in a while I wouldn’t mind one out of convenience.