AOpen's CRW5232L is a basic CD-RW drive with an agreeable price tag. Most manufacturers offer DVD writers these days, but if you just need to add CD writing capabilities to your older system, this CD-RW drive is an inexpensive option.

The CRW5232L burns audio and data CD at 52X, so you can create a full CD in about 2 minutes. The rewrite speed of 32X makes for rapid rewriteable backups as well. There is a 2MB data buffer to prevent writing errors, as well as JustLink and JustSpeed technologies integrated into the drive to help prevent any incidence of coaster creation during burns.

The front of the drive is quite spartan. There isn't a front audio jack or volume control, so you can't listen to music CD directly from the drive. An LED blinks during reads and writes, and the front panel is also home to a tray open/close button and an emergency eject hole in case you need to open the drive when there's no power connected to it.

Installing the CRW5232L is typical of internal optical drive installation. You need to get inside your system to connect the IDE, power and audio cables, but in most cases you can simply replace an existing optical drive with this CD-RW drive and connect the same cables. You can mount the CRW5232L either horizontally or vertically, as this makes no difference to its performance.

The CRW5232L is listed at $40, but we were able to find it for closer to $20 from a variety of vendors. If you require a basic CD-RW drive, the AOpen CRW5232L is a good buy.


Pros: Fast CD-RW speeds, low price
Cons: No front audio jack or controls, basic features

Warranty
1 year, limited