Since external DVD drives are out in the market, external cd drives may seem like a less viable option. However, many aspects of an external cd drive make them at par with the more recent external DVD drive.
If you are not so much concerned with the amount of information you want to store, external cd drives ought to do the job for you. CDs store 700 MB, a pale comparison to DVDs which can store to as much as 10 GB. However, external DVD drives have usually slow writing speeds as compared to a cd external drive, which allows for writing speeds to as fast as 22x.
Another reason why cd external drives are an equally good option is the price by which it is usually sold, and for as low as $25, you can purchase a competent CD external drive. Its portability, furthermore, allows you to use these portable cd drives on practically many occasion on many computers. Use external cd drives if you are looking for quality speed for a quality price.