A New Toy?

I've been slogging along with the CD to MP3 conversion. I have 3 CDs remaining on Spindle #33. I have a single PC being used for this process. It was deemed too risky (my words) to use Alex's i3 laptop (remember, we purchased an i5 laptop for him shortly before he went to college at UNI because the i3 was "too slow") to do this because whenever I use a computer, I tend to have PC issues. That is true. In fact, the other week at work, my laptop acted like it wasn't charging. I submitted a ticket to the Help Desk and a guy I know came over to assist me. He ran diagnostics on the battery and said it was fine. I hook my laptop to a docking station and it turned out (embarrassed still about this) that I didn't have it plugged in all the way because as soon as I pushed in the thing in the back of the docking station, the laptop started charging.

Shifting gears to my CD to MP3 project, as a refresher, I began this project on 6/5/2016 with 5000 (50 spindles * 100 CDs on each) CDs to convert. Today, I'm on the downhill slide. After I finish Spindle #33 tonight, there will be 1700 (17 spindles * 100 CDs on each) CDs remaining to rip. Simple math tells me that 3300 divided by 5000 (50 spindles * 100 CDs on each) is 66% so I'm getting near the end. Because the Toshiba laptop CD drive ceased working, I'm only using a single CD drive on the Windows 10 PC. Ripping one CD at a time makes it feel like this conversion project is going really slow. I toyed with the idea of buying a cheap second machine and so, to investigate that, I happened to find a local computer company on Facebook. I sent a Facebook message to them, explaining what I was doing with the CDs to MP3 project and inquiring if there were any cheap machines with a CD drive for sale. I explained that I didn't think I would use the machine after the project is done.

The response took me by surprise. Their suggestion was to purchase an external CD drive - such as this one:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIABEJ65D8497&cm_re=external_cd_drive-_-27-136-267-_-Product - instead of a second machine. The logic is that instead of using two machines to rip CDs, use a single faster than what I have in the Windows 10 PC to rip each CD faster.

Brilliant! I can then use my work laptop, which doesn't have a CD drive, as a tunnel. At home, on the weekend, I can set up Windows Media Player to rip the CD from the external CD drive to an external hard drive, which I like because then, nothing is stored on my work laptop regarding this CD to MP3 project. I now have to plan this out.