more personal preference than "what's the best". Some people may have had better luck with one brand over the others. I personally prefer Lite-On drives. I haven't had a problem with any of the 2 Lite-On DVD+/-RW's that i've had. The only problem i've noticed though with DVD+/-RW's so far though, is that i don't believe they can burn CD's at the max speed of a normal CD-RW drive can (52x... or what is it up to now? 56x?) Think the highest that both of my Lite-On's have for CD-R's is 48x....... yep... that's what it says for my newer one, which is a 16x DVD+/-RW. That's why i kept my old Asus 52x CD-RW drive in my computer too. but i'm kinda thinking about now putting my other Lite-On back in my computer.... then i could do direct DVD-to-DVD copies instead of having the stuff get cached to my hard drive.
edit: yeah, i'd like one of those SATA optical drives too...... would be nice. and Bman.... i don't believe that drive is a DVD burner. Usually they're referred to as just DVD-RW, or DVD+RW, or DVD+/-RW if they're dual format, because any DVD burner can burn cd's. the one you put can burn CD's only, and it can also PLAY dvd's, but not write to them.