Hi Slasher,
Excellent idea. Consider Freecom Lightweight Traveller.
I've only made one coffee mug coaster in 18 months and that was using Roxio EZ CD Creator. None with "ahead Nero".
For home base use with Desktop PC there is a lead that connects from the drive to the Firewire port but it does not power the drive. Need a power unit for that or - use the drive's internal battery.
For travelling notebook use (Sony Vaio), there is cable that interfaces into the PCMCIA slot and that provides the power as well. And again you can use the battery in the drive if you wish.
I've got Version One; assume Version Two is better; ie faster.
Costly, however. Miniaturisation always costs and the three different methods of powering it also cost. Interestingly both Freecom and ahead are both German.
One warning. Two Appliations I tried to put on the Desktop could not live with the ahead CD writing software. One was Norton Utilities. I preferred the ahead package and put Norton back in the box.
Curious that "new" PCs came with Win 98SE. Must have been clearance bargain!