kamild_ Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 (edited) I've been using the BDR-S12XLT drive for recording Blu-Rays for about 2 years, and I've been very happy with the drive - regularly recording Verbatim BD-R and BD-R DL discs as well as occasionally Verbatim DVD-R DLs, not a single burn has failed, no issues of any kind so far. Basically a perfect drive for my use case. Unfortunately, it looks like I might be forced to part ways with it. Having upgraded my PC and having switched to an SFF form factor, I can no longer install this drive in my PC. I've been using it with this new PC via a SATA-USB 3 adapter with an external power supply, but it's not exactly reliable, occasionally not being detected by my PC. I've used it to record only 2 discs so far, but these detection issues make me worry I might eventually start getting my media destroyed by this solution. My only options are either a slim factor internal drive, or an external USB drive (any size factor in this case). From reading the forums, it seems like both kinds of these drives are widely considered to be problematic, but are there any outstanding drives worth recommending that might be as close to reliable as possible? My use case is just as before, mostly recording SL/DL Blu-Rays, sometimes recording DL DVDs, maybe eventually recording M-Discs. Pioneer does seem to have a decent collection of external drives, so how about something like a BDR-X13EBK or BDR-X13E-S? Or maybe one of their slim-size external drives? Looking forward to hear your experiences and advice on this topic. Edited January 19 by kamild_ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbminter Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 Skip Pioneer's. Pioneer always borks their firmware and have done so for the past decade. The 213 is their latest model, but it has several problems. I'd recommend ASUS's BD burner, the BW-16D1HT and put it in a USB enclosure. If you want a BD burner, the LG WH16NS40 is really the only other option. The NS60 worked well, but it's not available anymore. I haven't used the NS40 is several years, but it did have some flaws. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamild_ Posted January 20 Author Share Posted January 20 19 hours ago, dbminter said: Skip Pioneer's. Pioneer always borks their firmware and have done so for the past decade. The 213 is their latest model, but it has several problems. I'd recommend ASUS's BD burner, the BW-16D1HT and put it in a USB enclosure. If you want a BD burner, the LG WH16NS40 is really the only other option. The NS60 worked well, but it's not available anymore. I haven't used the NS40 is several years, but it did have some flaws. I guess I got lucky with my first and only Pioneer. Thanks for the warning. Do you have any specific USB enclosures in mind that are proven to work well with such BD burners? Considering the one I have seems to struggle a little. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbminter Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 Pioneer's used to be great. For several years, they were my go to DVD drives. You probably just never encountered the deal killer: 8x DVD+RW writes. You need a USB 3.0 enclosure to properly use a BD drive in. And I've only ever encountered 2 USB 3.0 enclosure models out there. The one made by VanTec and the one made by Other World Computing. VanTec's model is a little more difficult to put drives into. VanTec's 2nd generation model had a flaw where you could not update the firmware of LG's WH16NS60's in them. The OWC one has a flaw with WH16NS60's. If you power off the enclosure and power it back on, Windows will NOT recognize the drive until you restart Windows. Pioneer and ASUS drives do not do this. Don't know about the WH16NS40, since you can't get the NS60 anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts