The drive is capable of writing to a CD at speeds up to 24X and to DVDs at up to 8X. Throughout my testing I found this to be true when connected to my Dell XPS 13. Of course the drive does not continuously write at max speeds but it is capable. I believe the biggest issue with DVDs is the bandwidth limitations over USB 2.0.
Overall this is a great external drive. It is small enough to throw in a backpack and light enough that you will most likely not even notice it. The fact that it holds true to its rated speeds makes it that much better.
If you are interested in purchasing this drive it can be found here.