Introduction

External and portability seems to be the call of the day with CD-RW drives now. Hardware Zone's third external drive after the AOpen and LITE-ON's, the TDK external drive we have here today runs on the now-standard USB 2.0 interface and comes with a writing speed of 40x, re-writing at 12x and reading at 40x.


Much like the Iomega Predator 2 and the LITE-ON LX24101A, this External TDK CyClone is an external "top-loading" CD-RW drive too. Call it a stroke of fate, based on the drive's design and asthetic, it's clear-cut that the TDK CyClone is based on a LITE-ON OEM model - so we can expect to see a similar LITE-ON external USB 2.0 40x12x40x CD-RW drive soon.

Like some of the previous TDK CyClone drives we reviewed, the TDK CyClone External USB 2.0 features the usual CD-R/RW, Nero and MixMaster software and a CD-R pen.

In the TDK CyClone package, you'll find a software disc (which includes Nero 5.5, InCD 2 and TDK Digital MixMaster), an 80-minute 12x CD-RW disc, an 80-minute 40x CD-R disc, a proprietory USB 2.0 cable, a CD-R pen and manuals. Strangely, TDK seems to have missed out on an emergency pin which they would normally bundle with their drives. But that's a minor issue really, as the TDK CyClone certainly attracts the typical user with its vast range of bundled goodies and I must say that it's a pretty complete package.

Let's check out the specifications shown below :-