CD recording is now so commonplace and accessible that even your boss is probably ripping off PlayStation games in his/her office on a daily basis. But there are legal uses for the technology, too, such as file transfer, low-volume application distribution, archiving and, in some cases, backup. Most of the attention from buyers and the media has focussed on internal CD-R drives, but if you don't fancy the hassle of pulling your PC to pieces, or your system has no spare drive bays - or perhaps you own a Mac - then an external SCSI CD Recorder makes a lot of sense. Dynatek has come up with just such a drive, using a Teac 8-speed write, 24-speed read CD-R drive enclosed in a solid plastic case. It's a SCSI drive, feels exceptionally well made, and takes its power from the mains.

What you get, apart from the drive itself, is an Adaptec AVA-2902 PCI SCSI card, which is a Fast SCSI host adapter. There's also a copy of Nero, which is a compact CD-R creation package with some interesting capabilities for the PC, and there's the obligatory pair of blank CD-R discs plus a power cable and a SCSI terminator for use if the CDM drive is to be the last device in the SCSI chain. What you don't get, however, is a cable to connect the SCSI card to the drive, Dynatek presumably reasoning that many potential users will already have their own preferred SCSI adapter. It is a bit irritating if you don't, though.

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Dynatek includes a short but useful manual for the drive itself, Nero comes with its own documentation on the CD and there's the briefest of leaflets from Adaptec covering the installation and use of the AVA-2902. After that, you're on your own, but fortunately the installation of this device is relatively painless. If you have your own SCSI adapter in use already, all you have to do is choose an appropriate SCSI ID for the drive and you're away. If you're using the supplied Adaptec card, there'll be some use of the screwdriver, but - once you've found yourself a cable - things should still progress quite smoothly.

Once installed, the drive can be used as a conventional 24-speed CDROM drive, in addition to its write function. In most cases, a large hard drive will be sufficient to allow you to master and burn new CD-R discs, although for some applications a second CDROM drive would be necessary. The drive is a bit louder than you'd expect in operation, but still quieter than most PC cooling fans, so you probably won't notice the intrusion. And if you do, you probably won't care, given that the speed of this drive means that you can record a complete CD in less than ten minutes.

Although more expensive than an internal drive, the CDM8240 8x CD Recorder is still far from dear, and many users will be happy to pay the premium for the additional flexibility of an external drive. Leaving aside any possible preconceptions you may have about the ease of installation of SCSI devices, this drive offers an easy way to get into CD recording, with the added benefit that SCSI CD-R drives use far less processor power than cheaper EIDE/ATAPI ones, so you're less likely to end up with a coffee mat instead of a shiny, newly-burned CD.