Preferred 9.5mm DVD-RW drive

I thought a search would turn something up, but I can't find anything.

What is the preferred 9.5mm sata dvd-rw drive? TSST, PLDS, Optiarc or etc...

Would a non-Dell dvd-rw drive work as well? Would it need firmware update?

Thanks and I know this is an opinion question!

 

Any standard 9.5mm SATA optical drive would work.

Most Dell's I've worked with comes with Mata or TSST optical drives.

 

Go to Dell support and check out the specs of their different ODD. Look for the height and you'll find out the models with 9.5mm height. You can buy these off of eBay or any other source and they will work just as well as the same Dell drive. I haven't looked up DVD drives but the E6400 uses the Panasonic BD-RE 9.5mm UJ-232A.

 

Which model notebook? We had a recent discussion in another thread (it related to E4300 or E4310 but I can't find it) which suggests that the optical drives that are designed to be removable have a slightly different design to non-removable drives. The removable ones have a place to hold the release mechanism and may not fit in a chassis designed for drives without the release mechanism.

John