I have noticed that these can be had for a very small investment these days. I would like to know if any one has experience with this drive for DAE with EAC? I would like to get this one to save the wear and tear on my laptops drive. Which I guess is not that hot either

I hooked my HD-DVD drive up to my notebook once. My notebook didn't have a HDCP complaint graphics card so I hooked it back up to my Xbox 360. However, during its short time hooked up to my notebook, I tried to rip a couple of problematic CDs. It had the same problems with the same CDs in the same areas as my notebook's built-in NEC DVD+-R/RW drive. So, from my experience, the drive isn't any better than the one built into my notebook.

I don't think that I would use it for ripping audio CDs though as it is a HD-DVD drive. It should be used for playing HD-DVD movies.

I've tried to use my xbox360 HD drive for audio ripping and its not very good. It does (or didn't) seem to work very well with dbpoweramp. (lots of re-reads etc) Did not try any other programs.