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If speed is a concern for frequent Blu-ray ripping or writing tasks, you should get our runner-up Blu-ray pick or invest in a dedicated internal Blu-ray drive for a desktop computer; otherwise, for reading Blu-rays and DVDs, and occasionally burning either one, this Pioneer drive is the best option. This item External Bluray DVD Drive Player 3D 4K, USB 3.0 External Blu ray Reader CD DVD Writer for Mac os, Windows,PC. TOPELEK External Bluray Drive, USB 3.0 External Blu Ray Player Writer Portable BD/CD/DVD Burner Drive with Polished Metal Chrome for Mac, Windows 10, Laptop, PC - Silvery.

Playing Blu-ray movies on a Mac has been a 'bag of hurt' for far too long. Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs famously complained that the licensing involved in including Blu-ray movie support in Mac OS X was too expensive and complicated to be worth pursuing. An alternate theory is that Apple simply skipped integrating Blu-ray into its Macs in favor of iTunes Store movie downloads. Whatever your view, the fact is that Mac OS X still doesn't have native Blu-ray movie support.

However, Mac OS X does have support for reading and writing Blu-ray Data (BD) discs, and Final Cut Pro can burn projects to Blu-ray for playback. For this reason, some peripheral makers have begun selling limited external and internal Blu-ray drives to Mac users. But the ability to pop a Blu-ray disc into a MacBook Pro and watch a movie—just as you can with a DVD—has so far eluded Mac users.

So when MCE Technologies told us they had a new line of Blu-ray burners that came with Mac software for watching Blu-ray movies, our interest was piqued. After all, who doesn't like high-definition movies? Perhaps the solution would work for those interested in a Mac-based home theater, or for laptop-toting travelers.

Unfortunately, as we discovered, it seems as though MCE's solution introduces its own bag of hurt.

The Hardware

MCE offers both internal and external Blu-ray burners for Mac users. The internal option only fits the Mac Pro, while the external version connects via USB 2.0 or eSATA. Since our test bed was a late 2010 MacBook Air, we opted for the external option that connects via USB. One thing we wanted to consider was how well it might work when connected to a Mac mini, for instance, and it would likewise use a USB 2.0 connection.

Rather unfortunately (at least in our view), the external drive is a hulking monster, because the LG mechanism that MCE uses is a full-size optical drive. That, in turn, is encased along with a bulky power supply and a fairly loud fan. It certainly wouldn't suit an HTPC set-up. Its size, weight, and awkward wall adapter also doesn't suit itself very well to portable use.

That said, we did put the drive through its paces. It can read BD discs just fine, and the supplied blank BD-R disc worked perfectly in the Finder to burn a huge set of files. Of course, we have little cause to rely on optical media much in these days of solid state storage and Dropbox. Still, busy photographers, videographers, audio engineers, and others who work with large data sets will be glad to have the ability to store up to 25GB on a single disc. MCE advertises the drive as the 'world's fastest external Blu-ray drive for your Mac, and although we have little basis for comparison, the drive certainly didn't seem slow.

(It should be noted the MCE offers an optional copy of Toast 11 if your burning needs exceed the basics. For our purposes, however, it was not included.)

The Software

MCE doesn't make the included Mac Blu-ray Player software itself; instead, each drive is supplied with a free one-year license code. We went to the developer's website to see how much it would cost to permanently license the software, and it seems it is on sale for $49.95 for the holidays; it normally sells for $59.95.

We double-clicked the DMG file, dragged the app to our Applications folder, and fired up the software. Right away we were greeted with a box to enter the license code. If you don't have one, the software will still play Blu-ray discs or ripped ISOs, but it will show an 'unlicensed' notice across the middle of your movie.

The interface is simple enough, with two large buttons to open a file or open a disc. The controls and UI widgets are well designed and look nice. We popped in a copy of Casino Royale into the drive, waited a few seconds for it to load, and clicked 'Open Disc.'

Choosing the disc, cryptically called LOGICAL_VOLUME_ID, didn't load any menus, previews, or other bits, as expected. Instead, you're greeted with a generic custom menu from which you can pick 'Play,' 'Chapter,' 'Audio,' or 'Subtitle.' We were, needless to say, unimpressed with the experience.

After selecting 'Play,' however, things went from bad to worse. The audio played perfectly without fail. But the video stuttered, scrambled, and often froze on a single frame for minutes at a time. If the video froze, it wouldn't pick back up until it hit the next chapter marker.

We couldn't determine exactly what the cause of the video playback problems was. Audio continued to play, so the data stream was coming in from the drive to the software. We also tried a copy of Andy Samberg's stuntman farce Hot Rod, which likewise stuttered and froze.

The MacBook Air's integrated graphics may have been part of the problem, but the video played just fine for short periods, and it didn't freeze in the same places in multiple attempts to watch the movie. Furthermore, this particular MacBook Air has been connected to a 1080p HDTV in the past, so we know it's capable of playing back m4v files at HD resolution.

Finally, both movies played flawlessly on a Sony Vaio Z with its 'dockable' Blu-ray drive.

Our only conclusion: Mac Blu-ray Player software is not up to the standards that most users would expect.

UPDATE: The developers behind the popular open source video playback software VLC (VideoLAN Client) contacted Ars to let us know that MacGo, the developers of Mac Blu-ray Player, actually based their software on VLC and is in violation of its open source license.

'Mac Blu-Ray Player uses VLC 1.1 as the base of their product,' developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf said via e-mail. 'As per the GPL license, the complete code should be GPL'd. VideoLAN and VLC developers have contacted them several times, and they said, 'soon.' However, nothing ever arrived.'

Furthermore, Kempf noted that version 1.2 of VLC, currently in early beta testing, has some experimental Blu-ray playback capabilities on Mac OS X. 'It is still starting and experimental,' Kempf said, 'not all BD will play and there are no menus, but we are working on it.' We will definitely look into playback using that update when it's finished and released in final form.

UPDATE 2: MCE Technologies contacted us to let us know that they made an error in recommending the External Blu-ray Drive for testing Mac Blu-ray Player with our MacBook Air. As others mentioned in the comments and confirmed by MCE, Mac Blu-ray Player requires a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo or faster CPU to work properly. 'When this requirement is met, or exceeded, then Blu-ray playback is flawless,' an MCE spokesperson told Ars.

In light of this, the drive may suit your Blu-ray playback needs assuming your hardware can handle the software. Regardless, we don't feel conformable recommending the drive outside of desktop use, as we detail below.

The Verdict

In our view, the MCE Technologies External Blu-ray Drive for Mac is a solution with very limited appeal. The promise of playing Blu-ray movies just didn't materialize. But the hardware is perfectly competent for reading and writing BD discs and, paired with ripping software, it could be used to back up Blu-ray movies to a hard drive or home media server.

Its huge size and heavy weight, however, don't make it a very good portable solution. If you absolutely have to burn Blu-ray discs in the field, MCE's drive will certainly get the job done, but we wouldn't want to lug the thing around if we didn't have to.

The Blu-ray drive that comes with the Vaio Z, in comparison, is a dream. To be fair, it can only read Blu-ray discs, it can't burn them. But it can read and write DVDs and CDs, and it also has a built-in GPU and USB hub. It may be some time before Blu-ray burning technology can be shrunk down to this size, but it's definitely more in line with what we would expect from a true portable solution.

The size and design of the MCE drive also wouldn't make a very good companion to a Mac mini, and its loud fan makes it a non-starter in an HTPC setup. Blu-ray burning isn't really a requirement for an HTPC setup anyway, so a smaller read-only mechanism would suffice. If someone could package such a drive in a quiet enclosure that was stackable with a Mac mini, that would solve the hardware part of the equation.

Unfortunately, that would still leave a huge gaping hole on the software side. Mac Blu-ray Player is the only software we know of that advertises native Mac Blu-ray movie playback, and in our experience, it did not deliver. As noted in the updates above, faster hardware could handle Blu-ray playback if you need it, and more software may be coming soon. But the experience doesn't match what's available on Windows.

MCE's external Blu-ray drive seems perfectly fit for high volume data storage needs, particularly if you plan to leave it on your desk. But for the purposes of movie playback—whether desktop, portable, or HTPC scenarios—just don't bother. In this day and age, streaming video is readily available from Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, and other sources. For Mac users, the sad reality is that a standalone player is still a better option if Blu-ray playback is a must.

Blu-ray - 6x / DVD - 8x / CD - 24x

USB 2.0 / 3.0

Mac OS

1 year

The device is capable of handling the latest iteration of USB format meaning you will be able to transfer data with the USB 3.0 standard at up to 10 times the speed of USB 2.0. On top of that, this model is compatible with every version of Windows as well as Mac OS.

The model is somewhat bulky.

The ASUS BW-16D1X-U External Blu-Ray Drive is the kind of model that you absolutely must not miss if you're the type of person that is looking for a fast and powerful drive that will be able to secure the safety and privacy of your information.

Blu-ray, CD, DVD

Blu-ray - 12x / DVD - 16x / CD - 40x

USB 2.0 / 3.0

Windows, Mac OS

Horizontal, Vertical

6.5 x 2.5 x 9.6 inches

1 year

USB 3.0

Windows, Mac OS

5.5 х 0.5 x 5.8 inches

1 year

Jamless Play feature provides you with a possibility to play content from scratched discs without facing any kind of issues. On top of that, this device also supports the BDXL format which is the latest Blu-ray format that allows you to write Blu-ray discs of up to one hundred gigabytes.

The device does not support the latest USB protocol.

The LG BP50NB40 Slim External Blu-Ray Drive is the type of device that we can easily recommend to all people that appreciate design and mobility above anything else but don't want to compromise when it comes to functionality.

Blu-ray, CD, DVD

Blu-ray - 6x / DVD - 8x / CD - 24x

USB 2.0

Windows

Horizontal

5.7 x 0.6 x 6.1 inches

1 year

The model's premium aluminum casing, aside from its rugged composition, promotes heat dissipation, so it does a bang-up job preventing the drive from overheating when burning and reading discs at the highest speed. The USB 3.0 interface is 10 times faster than its predecessor and backward compatible.

Incapable of writing Blu-ray discs.

The Archgon MD-3102S-U3 is a solid budget option. It works just as great with old scratched discs as it does with new Blu-rays. You can always take it with you and turn just about any computer into a proper movie player.

Blu-ray, CD, DVD

Blu-ray 6x / DVD - 8x / CD - 24x

USB 2.0/USB 3.0

Windows, Mac OS

Horizontal

5.4 x 0.7 x 5.9 inches

1 year

Supported Formats and Speeds

Connection Interface and Power Supply

Ergonomics

Additional Info

Weight

Pioneer BDR-XS06 Super Slim Slot: 9.9 oz.

ASUS BW-16D1X-U: 40.9 oz.

Pioneer BDR-XD05B: 8.1 oz.

LG BP50NB40: 9.6 oz.

Key Specs

Features

Reading/writing

In Search of Incredible

There are different items and products out there that we as a society tend to collectively treat a certain way and determine the type of value we assign to them. And the fact that there are products that the majority of people believe to be of great importance and the quality of what the said product to be utmost imperative essentially means that there have to be items and devices that we have decided to be of lesser value and the quality of which isn't exactly necessary in order to successfully utilize them.

When it comes to external Blu-ray drives, most people would probably wholeheartedly put them under the latter category. And that would be a mistake since a quality Blu-ray drive is capable of providing the kind of comfort and performance that will greatly improve your everyday routine and make your life noticeably easier and more convenient in terms of entertainment. Of course, very few will be able to find an excellent external Blu-ray drive on their own but there's no need to worry about that. When it comes to anything even remotely related to information technology in general and computers in particular, you know you can always rely on Asus. Following their motto 'In Search of Incredible', people behind Asus products always make sure to provide a quality product at an affordable price. So if you're interested in an external Blu-ray drive, look no further than the ASUS BW-16D1X-U.

The Fastest Gun Around

One of the biggest philosophies of Asus lies upon the foundation of holding the performance aspect of their products to the highest standard. And the model at hand does not intend to be an exception to that rule. The ASUS BW-16D1X-U is a powerful Blu-ray disc drive that stands out from the proverbial crowd as one of the fastest options on the market featuring an incredible 16X Blu-ray writing speed with BDXL support that provides a data storage up to 128 GB. With this kind of speed, you will be able to write down your favorite Blu-ray movie in no time, leaving all of those precious hours free to enjoy some of the more interesting moments in life. On top of that, the device is capable of handling the latest iteration of USB format meaning you will be able to transfer data with the USB 3.0 standard at up to 10 times the speed of USB 2.0. And with the aforementioned 16X accelerated writing speed performance, it will take no more than 10 minutes to backup 25 gigabytes of data. Not to mention the fact that this model is compatible with every version of Windows as well as Mac OS making it a great choice for a variety of different customers.

Protect Your Information

The exterior of the ASUS BW-16D1X-U is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it features an absolutely stunning diamond-shaped design that provides an outstanding luxurious look with some of the cleanest aesthetics. On the other hand, the device could definitely be described as rather bulky. With 9.5 x 2.5 x 6.5 inches in overall dimensions and the weight of more than 2.5 pounds, transporting this model could certainly prove to be somewhat of a challenge. Of course, if you simply intend to use this external drive as a substitution for a regular one, then this somewhat bulky structure won't present any issues and an incredibly stylish design will blend in and improve any room regardless of the interior.

And if you're the kind of person that deeply cares about the safety of your information, you're absolutely in luck since this piece of equipment provides one of the most complete and easy-to-use backup solutions out there. Equipped with user-friendly and powerful software called CyberLink Power2Go 8, the model simplifies the disc-burning process and provides optional encryption functionality to protect the privacy of your information. On top of that, the drive also comes with an online backup solution for Android smartphones and tablets. All in all, the ASUS BW-16D1X-U External Blu-Ray Drive is the kind of model that you absolutely must not miss if you're the type of person that is looking for a fast and powerful drive that will be able to secure the safety and privacy of your information.

Additional Info

Max. Blu-Ray Writing Speed

Pioneer BDR-XS06 Super Slim Slot: 6 x

ASUS BW-16D1X-U: 16 x

Pioneer BDR-XD05B: 6 x

LG BP50NB40: 6 x

Reading/writing

Key Specs

Features

Supported Formats and Speeds

The Pioneer external Blu-ray burner was designed with noiseless operation in mind thanks to Auto Quiet Mode. This drive is capable of playing back 3D Blu-Ray discs without additional software and writing any DVD and CD discs. Speaking about the writing speeds, we are offered the 6x for burning BD-R discs, 8x - for DVD and 24x – for CD discs. With that, you can burn for example a Full HD movie (it is approximately 4 GB of data) to a DVD disc using the Pioneer portable Blu-ray burner in about 15 minutes while burning an entire 25 GB BD-R takes about 20-25 minutes at the maximum speed.

Connection Interface and Power Supply

This Pioneer external Blu-ray drive has a simple connection and is compatible with the devices based on a vast majority of modern operating systems. Standard operation of the drive requires only one USB 3.0 connection for both data and power transfer. As an option, the Pioneer drive can use a USB 2.0 cable for an auxiliary power supply. To start using this Plug-And-Play external Blu-ray drive you do not need to do any additional settings – just plug the drive data cable into your computer and the drive will be detected automatically. The microcontroller solution implemented in this USB Blu-ray reader allows watching a Full HD content from a Blu-ray disc at the push of a button.

Ergonomics

This external Blu-ray drive model can be called most compact in this review as it has 5.2 х 5.2 х 0.55-inch dimensions. The case with clam-shell opening is match any PC or a laptop. Nevertheless connecting this drive to Apple devices makes it look like it is in its proper place. The Pioneer external Blu-ray drive for Mac and PC has a horizontal mounting.

Width

Pioneer BDR-XS06 Super Slim Slot: 5.31 in.

ASUS BW-16D1X-U: 6.5 in.

Pioneer BDR-XD05B: 5.2 in.

LG BP50NB40: 5.7 in.

Key Specs

Reading/writing

Features

Enjoy Your Favorite Movies

It wouldn't be that much of an exaggeration to say that almost everybody enjoys movies. Obviously, people tend to prefer different genres and very few could honestly describe themselves as cinema aficionados, but it would be ludicrous to deny the fact that watching movies is one of the most popular pastime activities around the world.

The only problem with all of this is that even though specialists kept on improving the format of the video every few years with the most recent one being Blu-ray, the world of personal computers and laptops have undergone a completely opposite trend with the majority of them no longer featuring even a CD/DVD drive, let along a Blu-ray one. Of course, you can always download a movie on your USB drive, but with the majority of movies nowadays coming out in a Blu-ray format, that could easily prove to be quite a challenge given that the average USB drive is incapable of containing a full-length movie in a Blu-ray format.

This is where external Blu-ray drives come in. If you're a part of the majority of people that own a personal computer which didn't come equipped with a DVD or a Blu-ray drive, this type of device would allow you to enjoy your favorite movies without any kind of inconveniences. And if you're currently in the market for one, we can wholeheartedly recommend the LG BP50NB40.

Thin as a Stick

When it comes to any type of portable device, one of the first things that people tend to pay attention to is the size and the design of this product. And rightfully so, since a portable device is meant to be carried around and if the item at hand is too bulky or inconvenient, taking it with you can prove to be quite a challenge. Luckily for the potential customers, people behind this device at LG are aware of this phenomenon, which is exactly why this model features an incredibly sleek and stylish design black design and can be honestly labeled as one of the most mobile portable options on the external Blu-ray drive's market.

External Blu Ray Drive For Macbook Pro

With less than six inches in length, slightly above 6' in width, and an incredible number of 0.6 inches in height, this device is almost paper thin and takes up virtually no space, while the weight of 9.6 ounces on top of the overall dimensions will make carrying this Blu-ray drive around one of the easiest possible tasks out there. With the size of a pencil and the weight of an average apple, this device will make a great companion to bulky personal computers just as well as to some of the thinnest ultrabooks available.

Jamless Play

When it comes to the performance aspect, the LG BP50NB40 Slim External Blu-Ray Drive is no slouch either. The device is an excellent tool if you wish to watch Blu-ray movies or write Blu-ray discs. One of the things you will absolutely enjoy about this model is that it comes with a feature called Jamless Play. With a catchy name like that, what the feature essentially does is that it provides you with a possibility to play content from scratched discs without facing any kind of issues. On top of that, this device also supports the BDXL format which is the latest Blu-ray format that allows you to write Blu-ray discs of up to one hundred gigabytes. When it comes to actually working with the discs, the model is capable of handling triple-layer ones on a speed up to 2x and features a reading and writing speed of up to 6x with the regular Blu-ray discs. In terms of compatibility, the drive supports all of the recent and most popular operating systems and it works with just about any computer or laptop.

The last but not the least, the device also comes featuring a support for 3D Blu-ray disc playback meaning you can now enjoy your favorite Blu-ray titles on your PC in a new dimension by utilizing the 2D to 3D converting option. To sum it up, the LG BP50NB40 Slim External Blu-Ray Drive is the type of device that we can easily recommend to the kinds of people that appreciate design and mobility above anything else but don't want to compromise when it comes to functionality.

Additional Info

Height

Pioneer BDR-XS06 Super Slim Slot: 0.71 in.

ASUS BW-16D1X-U: 2.5 in.

Pioneer BDR-XD05B: 0.55 in.

LG BP50NB40: 0.6 in.

Key Specs

Reading/writing

Features

A Better Affordable Alternative

In the current year, it is all about Blu-ray. Though physical storage is becoming less and less predominant, you would be hard-pressed to find a copy of your favorite movie online in a Blu-ray quality. Plus, a Blu-ray disc is by far the most cost-efficient and convenient portable data storage solution as it offers you between 25 and 300 gigabytes of space, a radical improvement over 700-megabyte CDs and 4.7-gigabyte DVDs.

Unfortunately, plenty of laptops these days and a decent chunk of desktop PCs come without any kind of drive, let alone a Blu-ray one. But, with the Archgon MD-3102S-U3, you should be able to solve this little issue of yours.

Blu-ray isn't a cheap format so, naturally, external Blu-ray drives aren't that cheap either. That said, the model in question is one of the most affordable Blu-ray prospects on the market right now. And though it has its flaws, this is a pretty solid budget device that more than covers all of the basics.

Compatible Enough

Though optical disc drives, like any other computer component, are fairly intricate and complicated, for your average consumer, there isn't a whole lot to consider. You want your drive to be compatible with most operating systems and, fortunately, the Archgon MD-3102S-U3 is. It works with every iteration of Windows since Windows 7. Mac OS 10.8.5 or anything that came after it is just as suitable for this device. The only thing that manufacturers wanted you to know is that, with Surface Pro 3, you have to connect the external drive and your Surface via a powered USB hub.

The model in question is incapable of burning (writing) information onto Blu-ray discs, which is a bit of a shame but not much of a surprise considering its price. That said, you can use it to write CDs and DVDs. And, of course, the device will read Blu-rays for you since it won't be a Blu-ray drive otherwise.

Aluminum for the Win

The whole point of external Blu-rays, other than substituting the missing drive, is their portable nature. But a portable device is always prone to the rough and tumble of the road, so the model's premium aluminum casing was a welcome addition to the overall package. Aside from its rugged composition, aluminum is known for promoting heat dissipation, so it does a bang-up job preventing the drive from overheating when burning and reading discs at the highest speed.

The model uses a USB 3.0 interface to connect to your computer. Aside from being about 10 times faster than its predecessor, the latest iteration of USB is also backward compatible. That means the folks with high-end machines will be able to enjoy higher speeds, while those who have below average computers will still be able to use the device.

In short, the Archgon MD-3102S-U3 is a solid budget option. It works just as great with old scratched discs as it does with new Blu-rays. You can always take it with you and turn just about any computer into a movie machine.

Lg Cp40ng10 External Blu-ray Reader/dvd-writer

Additional Info

What Is a Blu Ray Disc Drive?

One of the main tendencies of computer equipment development is the miniaturization of the elements and units as a whole: desktop PCs are extensively substituted by nettops, and notebooks are making room for ultrabooks. With that, the PC internals either get smaller or get transformed into the new format or get discarded. The same holds for the optical drives. Blu-ray technology being the latest widely adopted implementation of optical disc recording offers higher capacities (from 25 GB to 128 GB) compared to the CD and DVD iterations. The higher capacities are achieved due to higher data recording density, thus the discs and the drives themselves retain the same size. In terms of mounting, the Blu-ray drives, in general, are divided into internal and external drives just like CD and DVD drives.

Nevertheless, it is too early to scrap the optical drives including the external Blu-ray drives as a class. The Blu-ray drives, in particular, owe this vitality to a widespread usage of Blu-ray discs for commercial purposes. Movies, music, software and video games are released frequently on physical media along with their digital copies. On the other hand, the adoption of high-definition media formats such as 4K drives the media capacity increase as conventional DVD discs do not have enough capacity for accommodating a full-length movie in this format.

If you have a big collection of movies or music, which you’d like to share with your friends or take with you on a trip, we suggest you check out the external hard drives and solid state drives, which can accommodate plenty of multimedia data and offer great portability.

What Features to Compare

The first factor we should consider is Performance. The Performance of an external Blu-ray drive is determined preeminently by disc reading and writing speeds, which differ from one disc format to another. Talking about disc writing and reading speeds we should focus on Blu-ray disc writing/reading speeds in the first place. A writing speed determines, for example, the period of time required for an external Blu-ray drive for laptop or desktop PCs to burn an HD movie to a disc (this opportunity is one of the main driving factors of buying a Blu-ray drive). The same applies to Blu-ray disc reading, but you should keep in mind that playing a movie released on a Blu-ray disc can be done on any external Blu-ray drive. Higher Blu-ray disc reading speeds are needed mostly to process non-multimedia data on Blu-ray discs such as games, software, etc. Please note that the Blu-ray optical disc data storage technology as the latest widely adopted optical disc technology provides a backward compatibility with the previous optical disc technology iterations, such as CD and DVD. This backward compatibility means that external Blu-ray drives can both read and write CD and DVD discs, though the speeds depend on a Blu-ray drive model.

The maximum Blu-ray disc reading speed offered by external Blu-ray drives lies in the range between 2х and 12х, maximum writing (burning) speed for BD-R often called write-once discs or non-erasable discs (single-layer) and BD-R DL (double-layer format that contains almost twice as much data as a single-layer disc) discs – up to 12х. As for the BD-RE (single-layer rewritable discs), the maximum supported writing speed is 3x for the most devices and 2x for burning the BD-RE DL (double-layer rewritable discs) format. The important thing is, despite all the inherent Blu-ray disc data integrity protection and error correction technologies, the higher the burning speed is, the higher the probability of data loss or incorrect burning is. Thus, if you have an opportunity and enough time, we recommend not to burn your discs at the maximum speed supported by your external Blu-ray drive for Mac-based or Windows-based devices. In this case, the writing of a disc will take more time but you are less likely to have data integrity issues; while the shorter writing time provided by the maximum supported writing speed may be a critical factor for those users who burn several discs a day. From this point of view, an external Blu-ray drive model that provides high burning speeds is excessive for non-commercial home or portable use. Indeed, with the capacity of a single-layer Blu-ray disc of 25 GB and 50 GB for double-layer discs (we mean single-sided discs, you need to double the mentioned figures for double-sided discs) you manipulate a storage media capacity 5 times as large as one of DVD and 70 times as large as one of CD discs. That means that a single-sided Blu-ray disc can carry up to 135 minutes of HD video or up to 9 hours of SD video.

The Connection Interface and Power Supply are also important for an external Blu-ray drive as a portable device. This portability comes at a price of additional requirements, such as external power supply. Some external Blu-гау drive models require an external power adapter as the power supplied via a USB port used for a data exchange with a master device is not enough for the drive operation. Though some models can be easily connected to any PC, laptop or a netbook via a USB 2.0 or 3.0 slot and operated without additional power supply. The use of USB as both data exchange interface and a power supply is a big plus for an external Blu-ray burner because you can use the drive for reading or writing discs even if there is no power socket available and the laptop used operates on its battery.

Regarding the data exchange speed, the USB 3.0 is preferable to USB 2.0 as a connection interface of an external Blu-ray drive. The theoretical or peak data transfer speed supported by USB 3.0 interface is up to 5 Gbps, which is much bigger than the 480 Mbps, at which the USB 2.0 is capped. Bear in mind though that these theoretical data transfer maximum values greatly exceed the actual data rates, which are determined by an external Blu-ray drive itself.

The third important point, which needs to be clarified when choosing a portable Blu-ray burner is its Ergonomics. The ergonomics is important as it greatly affects the convenience of use and portability of a drive. Considering the fact that you may want to opt for a stationary use of an external Blu-ray drive (as an external device installed, for instance, near a laptop) you should pay attention to the drive’s mounting type – vertical or horizontal. The mounting type may be critical for an extended stationary drive usage that implies, for example, connecting multiple PCs or laptops to the drive or moving it around an office. As cloud data storage is not available without an Internet connection and is not supported by some equipment for presentations, external Blu-ray drives are still relevant, providing mobility, wide compatibility, and large capacities.

Sources:

1. Optical disc drive, Wikipedia. January 4, 2017

2. Blu-ray Disc recordable,Wikipedia. February 6, 2017

3. Optical disc drive, archlinux.

4. Dennis HartmanWhat Is a Blu-Ray DVD Writer?Techwalla.com. March 31, 2015.

5. What is BD-R, BD-RE, BD-XL and Ultra HD Blu-ray? Online Tech Tips.

6. Robert SilvaBlu-ray and HD-DVD Basics, Livewire. October 19, 2016.

7. Blu-ray, Wikipedia. February 11, 2017.