I have tried a few of them, the ALURATEK is the best one i have tried. I use it with my toshiba notebook. it is 99 percent reliable. also have the TRIPPlite Keyspan model UHS-19 it also works, but does get squirrelly on occasion. It is nice not to have to use the adapters. you can get a descent XP laptop on ebay for about 100-150 bucks
the dell d520 is great for what you are doing. also the d520 has a removable cd drive that you can remove and replace with a floppy drive for about 20 bucks. just in case you need to load the floppy on the tac 20 jobs you may have.