What are you using to rip your cds to a hard drive?

I had been using the cd drive in my old laptop to rip cds to my external hard drive.  I have since bought a new laptop that does not have a cd drive.  To get a cd into the computer I am using a cheap external disc reader.  What are you guys using to spin those silver discs into hard drives?  I think I need something better than what I have, but I don't think I want to spend thousands of dollars to buy a disc drive.  My budget would be less than $1,000,

What do you think?