The Plextor external model is PX-708UF. Downside? None that I can think of. It has both firewire and USB connectivity.
Would the external version of the Plextor drive be slower in any way than the internal version? I would very much like to use the external version with DVDXcopy which is a very touchy program. Also, are there any issues with using an internal DVD ROM to read and using the Plextor external to write while copying movies (using DVDXcopy). Thank you.