You can get a mobile USB DVD R/W for 14 bucks from AliExpress and you can even get the blank DVDs for recording from there too (I checked as I was curious) and a spindle of 25 is (hilariously, IMHO) more expensive than the DVD R/W hardware.

I was putting together a replacement Mini PC for somebody with a really really old PC and just got two, one for myself, and it works fine.

That said, if you recorded CDs or DVDs back in the day the chance that they still work isn’t all that great (the data layer will age and degrades with light) but old pressed CDs/DVDs (which have an aluminium data layer) should be fine.

I wouldn’t at all recomend that as a means to store game installers (I’ve been using external HDs for a decade now, but I suspect SSDs easilly outlast HDDs in the long run since they don’t have moveable parts), but if you have some old games in a physical pressed CD or DVD they should work fine.