External drive recommendations?

[Brian Thomas]

I hope this is the right place to post this question.

 

I have a few external DVD drives and I cycle through them using ImgBurn. I'd like to add an EXTERNAL Blu-Ray drive to my array of drives and I was wondering if anybody had any particular advice about which model would be worthwhile looking at or NOT looking at.

 

Specifically:

 

  - it shouldn't be one of those slim drives where one has to push the optical media back in to get the 'Verify' phase going

 

  - it should be able to make DVDs or Blu-Rays 

 

  - either USB2 or Firewire 800 (not USB3)

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Brian.

 

[LIGHTNING UK!]

If you aren't going the 'slim' route, get an enclosure and put your own choice of BD drive in it.

 

I'd go for a Pioneer.

[Brian Thomas]

Many thanks for the reply. Here in Switzerland the Pioneer BDR-209DBK seems to be the most readily available and I have written to one distributor to see if they can help me with the enclosure you mention. Thanks again!

[dbminter]

Why don't you want USB 3?  USB 3 should still work on a USB 2 port, just at a slower speed.  My external HDD is USB 3 but I've got it running on a USB 2 port.

[Brian Thomas]

Whoops, it's not that I don't want USB3 - I have, for example, a number of HDDs that I connect using USB3 and sometimes USB2 depending on what plugs are available with everything else going on. It's just that the iMac that I usually have my nine LG DVD burners attached to and on which I have Imgburn running (under Windows 7 which is running under VMWare Fusion) only has USB2 and Firewire 800 so I didn't want to risk any confusion.

 

Anyway, right now I'm thinking about a Pioneer BDR-209EBK (or a BDR-S09XLT - I wonder what's the difference between them?) with a suitable enclosure which could be one of these: http://www.raidsonic.de/en/products/external-cases.php?we_objectID=8165

 

I'm doing more research but of course if anybody here has any other specific recommendations I'd really love to hear them.

[dbminter]

I have a Pioneer BDR-209M that I've been using since January without any big issues.  My next BD drive will also be a Pioneer if I can find one.  I had an LG but I can't recommend it because of my experience with Ritek 8x DVD+RW.  The LG I had writes to them a few times but once they're written to once, they will die shortly afterwards, even if you try writing them in another drive afterwards.  I don't know if this LG HL-DT-ST_BD-RE_WH14NS40 Firmware 1.03 drive just doesn't like rewritables in general or just DVD+RW or just Riteks. 
 

[Brian Thomas]

Ah, this is all good to know. My LGs have been pretty good with the DVD-Rs that I sell onto my contacts but your experience confirms that it might well be a good idea to look at the Pioneer range now for the occasional Blu-Ray that I'll be asked to supply. Thanks for sharing your experiences! 

[dbminter]

Yeah, my LG was good for everything else except for those Ritek 8x DVD+RW's.

 

 

Also, if you come across any old Lite-On BD drives, I say stay away.  I had one and only one.  It stopped writing to BD-RE after 3 months.  It didn't write dual layer DVD Video correctly, randomly inserting pauses into the playback that weren't layer breaks.  Out of 3 DVD Video DVD+R DL I wrote, only 1 did not have such an issue.  It shouldn't be an issue anymore as Lite-On no longer makes BD drives, I don't think.  But, if you come across an old one, as I said, I don't recommend it.

[Brian Thomas]

Right, that's all good to know, thanks! I hope to order the new equipment in a couple of days and in due course I'll be back with all sorts of questions about Blu-ray ;-)

[dbminter]

I've only got about 2 years experience with Blu-Rays.  For instance, I know far more about how DVD Video works versus how Blu-Ray's video folder contents work.  But, I'll, of course, offer whatever I can. 

 

 

The good news is that any other data contents should be the same as on DVD or CD.  Same UDF, etc formats.