For years I’ve kept a CD/DVD player in the computer box under my desk. But it’s hard to reach and there’s no good reason to keep it there. I can place it into an external enclosure for cheap enough and the USB is plenty fast enough. I found an enclosure for $45 on NewEgg. It came with it’s own power brick and USB or FireWire interfaces. The built-in fan was noisy so I unplugged it. It’s really only necessary when it runs a long time and the metal casing should help keep it cool. I know over the years CD players have gotten much hotter living in a case with CPUs, memory, and hard drives.
Here is the pic. It’s been a very positive experience. I haven’t found any drawbacks. Perhaps price. It basically doubles the price of the CD player.