My laptop is too small to have an optical drive bay. I conceded I really have to have an optical drive, and was about to go buy an external; but if I had a USB-to-SATA adapter, would it allow me to connect my laptop (indirectly) to the optical drive I have left over from the last time I had a desktop computer? Even though an external optical drive would be simpler, the idea of reusing perfectly good components I already have appeals to me so much that I might try this alternative anyway if I thought it would work reliably (and if the adapter didn't cost much).

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good brand for this? I suppose I'll look for Sabrent by default; I've had good luck with their devices.

I have also used Sabrent devices.

As long as the adapter is compatible with CD devices it should work. Not real portable but probably that is not a factor.

So I have just bought a USB-to-SATA adapter. Reading is fine; no results on writing yet.

Out of curiosity, how are you powering the CD drive?

It has a power adapter. Essentially the setup has two separate adapters: the actual SATA/USB adapter, from which the SATA data cable connects to the drive; and the power brick, which has a Molex connector that plugs into a short Molex-to-SATA-power cable.

But the experiment is over for me. The device worked for one day, then quit. Giving up, I took it back to the store and bought an external DVD-RW drive.

At the time I took it back, I was sure it had simply broken, but now I have some doubt. When it worked, I sometimes plugged the USB cable directly into my laptop and sometimes plugged it into my portable hub. I don't remember which port it was plugged into when it seemingly quit on me, but if it was plugged into the hub, I now wonder if the problem was only that I didn't have the USB hub connected to power. The drive was powered, but the USB hub wasn't. It just didn't occur to me to plug the hub in, because I've never needed much power for it. I use it mostly for flash drives. And so I may have returned a device that wasn't broken. (It was Sabrent, the same brand as my USB hub, which has been quite reliable.) But on the female Molex connector, one of the four holes did not have a metal sheath in it like the other three. I wasn't sure whether it was meant to be that way, and if not, I simply had a defective device. I don't know--if the lack of metal in one hole in the female end of the Molex should have prevented the adapter working, why did it work even briefly?

Did the adapter plug into the wall or some external power brick, or did it get its power from a USB port? If it's USB, then the missing pin connector was most likely intentional, since USB only provides 5 volts, and one of the pins on the Molex connector is supposed to provide 12 volts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molex_...tor#Disk_drive

I did that once, a long time ago. I had several dvd drives and old HDDs on hand. I bought a no-name adapter off ebay, and it worked fine. It might still be around somewhere, I haven't looked for it in a couple of years at least. I have no need for dvd drives now.

The adapter gets its power from USB. The adapter and the power brick are separate; I didn't realize until now that the power brick may or may not have been needed.