Who still uses DVDs? Let it be known, I have a collection of over 2000 DVDs (burners and originals) and I can't be bothered to use them. Pen Drives are so much more convenient, available in much bigger storage capacities, faster, usually more reliable (in case of burned DVDs) and by now cheaper.
For old style magnetic media, like tapes I can still see uses. Still very hard to beat with regards for price/performance per GByte of stored information. But DVDs? Its just not worth it. I can buy here in the capital 1TByte portable hard disks from Seagate for 30 USD. With DVD's you must make lists of what is stored where, you need to verify if burned DVDs still work after a year or so, you must store DVDs Preferably in a location without lights and a constant temperature else they fade/rot away.
While portable hard disks are not a good long term storage plan either, they sure do last longer than burned DVDs. Original DVDs use much better material for their storage layer, which is then protected by one or two optically invisible layers. That makes them much more robust than burn DVDs, which use a much worse material (so the laser inside the burner doesn't have to be too strong). Protection layers are usually not included, because legally the strength of a laser for public use is very limited. So the material in the storage layer does rot away pretty easily, making the data unreadable.
Nowadays I only have one DVD reader available to copy the drivers from any device I purchase onto a portable hard disk (I always keep those as an archive, just so I know there are drivers to fall back to). And that is literally the only reason.
Ok, on topic: Mouser is correct, you will be needing a USB hub device that comes with its own power supply. Although the laser in a burner is weak, it does draw quite some power when writing to a DVD. You also have to take into account that it is very important that the engine spinning the DVD that is being burned runs at the same RPMs during the writing. You really should not depend on the power of the USB ports on your laptop to provide the power to spin the DVD and the laser. Any hiccup there and you can throw away the DVD. No, even burning DVDs with the slowest setting can fail easily when you only depend on the power supply from your laptop.
USB hubs with separate power supply should have enough consistent power for burning DVDs. Is there a DVD reader in the laptop you have? If so, use that reader to check if the burned DVD was done correctly. You will be surprised (in a bad way) how much burn DVDs can only be read properly in the DVD unit that did the burning.
Buying a USB bracket and separate DVD burner device to create your own portable DVD burner, that can be a not so great experience. Lots of burner devices do not burn so well when connected through USB. Firmware from USB brackets and DVD burner units are know to create conflicts. That way of creating your own portable DVD burner can be a total crap shoot.
Really, so much headache for so little storage capacity per DVD, why even bother when there are so many better alternatives available for similar prices (per stored GByte) or cheaper...
