The CR563-B is an older unit made by Panasonic's parent company. It uses proprietary drivers but fits in a standard 5.25" drive bay. It can be used in a wide variety of PC-compatible desktop computers.

This Matsushita is slower than many such drives; according to UltraDrives.com, the CR-563B has a 2x speed. Thus it will probably not install programs or open/copy data as quickly as higher speed models.

CD-ROM drives can read (but not write to) CDs, allowing the computer to run programs, install drivers, display photos, or play music recorded on a compact disc.