A Burning Desire Got your heart set on upgrading your CD burner? Check out the latest drives before you buy.

Whether you're dealing with one desktop or 100, a CD burneris a desirable piece of hardware capable of tackling many tasks. Ifyou have any earlier generation burners hanging around, now is anaffordable time to up-grade to the latest and greatest. Fastburning speeds let your employees spend their time on tasks moreimportant than waiting for a disc to finish recording. We'remostly going to scope out CD burners that also allow you to viewDVDs, and we've thrown in a few DVD-burning drives, just forgood measure.

The first question you're likely to face is "Internalor external?" Internal drives are cheaper and require somebasic computer knowledge to install. External drives can betransferred from computer to computer as needed for backup orpresentation use. If you need the portability so one drive canhandle the occasional tasks of a group of workers, go external. Ifnot, internal drives cost less, save space and slide easily intoany empty 5 1/4-inch drive bay. At $99 (all prices street), theinternal CenDyne CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive shows just how affordable anupgrade can be.

Entrepreneurs on the go, looking to expand the capabilities oftheir laptop computers, can turn to the $279 Addonics drive,otherwise known by its lengthy model number, AEMDVRW48XUM. Justcall it the Addonics Mobile DVD/CDRW with USB 2.0 interface.It's also available with a PCMCIA or Firewire interface for afew dollars more. You'll pay for the portability, but DVDviewing and data backup are nice options for hard-traveling mobilewarriors.