I say just buy it. I've had BenQ 1620, 1640, and 1650, all IDE. BenQ drives and Plextor Premium were the reason I still had IDE in my PC. BenQ's are overrated. Sure they are good drives, but my last drive 1650 failed to burn dual layer MCC every single time I tried. At the same time cheap memorex drive (no idea of the actual manufacturer) wrote it perfectly. WTF? I used to update BenQ firmware religiously, but by then I got too tired of it and frustrated at what should have worked right out of the box so when Plextor Premium finally bit the bucket (I've seen it coming but couldn't do anything about it as Plextor refused to acknowledge the problem) I've finally ditched IDE and went with 7240. So far I've got no regrets. The biggest reason I didn't want to upgrade was because it seemed like most of the newer drives relied too much on Z-CLV and I wanted CLV/CAV drive. 7240 is mainly a CLV/CAV drive (with some minor Z-CLV thrown in between) so I got no regrets. It works fine, and I do not miss my BenQ and Plextor (will never buy Plextor drive again). The only hiccup with 7240 is that just before the tray opens I hear a "thud". I don't know if that's how it's supposed to be or if it's a sign of early tray failure, at $20 it's not really an issue as it's cheap to replace and I don't use DVD drive very often anyway.