There are two types of CD drives, CLV and CAV drives. CLV stands for Constant Linear Velocity. When CLV is present, the drive reads data at a constant rate whether on the outside or inside track of the disc. As speed of drives have progressed, the CLV drives have gradually disappeared for CAV drives. CAV stands for Constant Angular Velocity. This method reads data on the outside tracks of a disc at a slower rate than the inner tracks which contain most of the data. CAV has allowed drive manufacturers to up the speed of the drives, as CLV needs to maintain a higher stability throughout.

The drive came in a red box with a description of the available features and a picture of the drive open on the front of the box. I think the box is eye-catching, especially if you’re looking for a DVD drive. Hardware wise, the drive came with an analog audio cable, mounting screws, a eject pin and a black drive face. The eject pin is a good thing to have as you can eject a CD or DVD from the drive by simply inserting the pin into the eject hole. I think the inclusion of a black drive face is great, as sometimes I’ll put together a system that is all black. In that situation, a white drive face will look out of place.

Gigabyte includes a decent selection of popular software with the drive. Nero is the most popular disc writing software in the world. I use Nero every day in burning DVDs and CDs. Nero allows you to make data and bootable data Discs. If you want to make an audio CD, your choices are Audio CD-ROM, Audio and Data CD-ROM, MP3 Disc, WMA Disc, a Nero Digital Audio Disc. Video CD choices are Video CD, Super Video CD and MiniDVDs. The last choice is Copy Entire Disc and using a Disc Image or Saved Project. The DVD choices are varied as well. PowerDVD 5 is the latest version of Cyberlink's DVD playback software. It's the software I use when playing movies on my personal computer. One thing I wish manufacturers would include is some media with their drives. The Nero software comes with a Cover designer for CD/DVD cases. You can make a standard case, a DVD case, a Multi-Box cover and a Maxi cover from the standard templates.