My desktop's is internal and its awesome! I was actually just burning a CD to CD right now..............very easy since I have 2 CD ROM drives...............one with a CD burner, and the other is just a plain old CD ROM drive. I believe all CD burners are also CD ROM drives in one. My brother's laptop has a CD ROM/CD Burner/DVD in one, and that's also excellent. Its internal of course. My dad's laptop has a CD ROM and DVD in one, but no burner, so he got himself an external CD Burner for that and the older desktop. Its good, but no where near as good as the internal ones. I love my CD burner. Its great........very fast, quiet, does a good job, and its internal, so a part of the computer. My dad's external is always getting in the way! He he he