I have just done another massive upgrade to EndeavourOS on this junker Lenovo laptop from 2014. It is an EFI/GPT install. Aside from having to refresh the keys before the installation would proceed, everything went fine.

CD/DVD-RW is really a dead technology in many ways. A lot of current laptops don't have it. Personally I don't use it unless I have a very old system that won't boot from USB.

SS identifies the port as USB 3 (faster data transfer). I think the lightning bolt means it's also a Thunderbolt port but I haven't used that technology.

This is most intriguing. I will look into this sort of thing. It would be great to have a way to hot plug a SATA SSD externally on a desktop tower. But it uses a USB pipeline? Anyway I will work on understanding what these can do. Way more convenient than having to remove all the clutter from the top of the tower (books, CD, DVD, etc.) and pulling the side cover off. 😉   My new HP tower has four USB ports on top, in the front. Thumb drives plug down into those jacks at a slight angle. Two of the USB symbols say "SS". I am assuming that's 'solid state' as in SSD? And one of the SS ports has a lightning bolt symbol as well... BTW the tower also has beaucoup USB ports on the rear panel.