aftermarket optical drives

Hi.

New here, but not new to the internet or pc building. Most of my laptop experience comes from supporting ibm/lenovo laptops. I know their optical drives are expensive and proprietary.

I tried to get some info from a search, but didn't find exactly what I was looking for. I've been looking into whitebooks for some time, and it looks like it's down to Asus and Clevo for my new notebook build. If I get one without an optical drive, is there a list of approved drives I must use specific to a model? Places like rjtech will sell you optical drives to go with the whitebook, but they look kinda expensive compared to what you could get for a drive at newegg.

Is there a place to get the drives, complete with bezels and anything else I'd need, or is the best way to just pony up the extra $10-$20 over standard cost to get one from the whitebook seller?

Lastly, does Asus offer a whitebook with dual hard drives support like the Clevo D900K? Something without having to switch out the optical drive for a second harddrive (which would make it hard to install any software or OS without a USB attachment).

 

all of asus s and z series come with bezels and rail kits. all you need is the bare drive. if youre talking about upgrading the w and v series for example then you may have to do some physical mods tot he existing facepleates that come with those notebooks. sometimes that is possible provided some ingenuity