Hi!

My chassis is a bit modded and I don't want to spoil the front with an internal drive. So I need an external one that is as quiet as possible. I would use it for watching movies (only DVDs for now) and installing software.

I would rather go without an optical drive alltogether, but I buy my games in the UK on DVD (this is significantly cheaper for me than going with Steam - I'm from Germany), so I neet one after all.

Nice looks are a bonus but not a necessity. Am I right to think that slim drives - external or internal - are usually louder than their thicker counterparts?

Oh an concerning burning discs - I will probably burn one DVD a year...at most. So this is really not an issue to consider

One of the quietest combo Blu-Ray players DVD writers is/was the Samsung SH-B083L. But it's an internal drive. However if you could find one at this sort of price http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Samsung-SH-B083L-8x-Blu-Ray-Reader-Lightscribe-DVD-RW-/170584960044?pt=UK_Computing_Drives_Storage_CD_DVD_Drives_ET&hash=item27b7a7ec2c and combine it with your own external USB 2.0 enclosure such as this one http://www.amazon.co.uk/MY-Link-5-25-Enclosure-case-CD-ROM/dp/B000MFNC6C/ref=cm_cr_pr_sims_t it could be exactly the combination you want.