Unresponsive Superdrive UJ-846 in Mini

[Paladin1006]

My Mini's Superdrive keeps spitting out disc after disc after about 90 seconds of churning on each one. After reading a lot of archives here, it looks like it might be time for a replacement. Just how important is it to install a REAL Superdrive?

I ask this question only because I have l discovered to my amazement that just about ANY EXTERNAL burners will work with Macs. I don't know how far back this compatibility reaches. But I currently am using AOpen, I/O Magic, Memorex, Philips, NEC, HP, Sony, Lite-On, and Plextor burners on my Mini 1.66Ghz, all at the same time! Every single one of them performs flawlessly. Some are connected via Firewire, others via USB. I guess the trick is that they are external. If they were installed internally, I understand there might be issues. But when I am shopping around for new burners, usually on ebay, I look for underdog/unknown brands and look for the widest variety of names I can find. I have only been disappointed when the drive itself was toast. Other than that, I intentionally try to obtain brands like Dell, etc., and covert them to Mac usage. I feel I have truly freed such hardware to a higher calling when I do this. :-]

Are there other brands of DVD burners out there know to work internally in Minis, PB's, etc., or are we restricted to Panasonic and Matshita?