I bought 1 of these in 2000 to upgrade my 52X version which failed repeatidly but they supposedly fixed the "bugs" in the 72x version, I still have it and it still works, I use it to install all my software on all my PC's, it's been going fine for over 3 years now, one of the oldest PC parts I have left that I still use regularly maybe I just got lucky and got a good one, because I pretty much only use it for installing software I really haven't had to many issues w/ it, the bigest problem I've got w/ it is that it has trouble reading some CD-R's and just flat out doesn't work w/ CD-RW's, I've got some PNY 12x and 16x media that it seems to get along w/ fairly well, so I just use that for my software when I need it to read CD-R's and I've been fairly happy w/ my 72X true X drive, it's still faster than any other drive I've ever seen and makes less noise than any of my DVD roms or Burners in the house even at full tilt