Great to pair with those surface pro or 2-in-1 ultrabooks that do not have an optical drive.
Note: Mini Y usb cable may be needed to provide stable power input
Price seems fairly decent to me and great reviews on Amazon as the No1 option in optical drives.
Be careful if you plan to rip your Blu-ray collection with these drives. Samsung drives are generally firmware locked to rip at a maximum of 2x. Which means it'd take over an hour for the average dual layer BD.
Just a thought for the penny pinchers. If you have a dead laptop with an ultrabay CD or DVD drive. You can remove it, and get an adapter cable from AlEbayExpress for a couple dollars and use it as an external USB drive. I've done it twice, it works.
can you provide a link please?
No worries, this ones A$8.02 shipped, but I think mine was under $5. So you can search and get better price.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/USB-2-0-Cable-Adapter-Converter-t…
I'd second this method also.
And I'd also urge caution on these samsung external bd drives. I have one and my sister has one. both don't work very well and rarely even recognise a dvd let alone a blu ray. On the other hand, I'd taken KNOWN (eg I've used them when in a laptop) sata notebook drives from old laptops or drives I've upgraded, both slot load and tray load, or even recently a HD-DVD drive I got for a project, and either put them in a caddy or just used a cable, and they have just worked well.
I don't get why they restrict these drives with usb 2.0?
neither do I
I believe it is that even with the fasted optical drive speeds, it doesn't come close to the USB 2.0 speed. I might be wrong though.
Very likely
It should be mandatory because USB3 supplies more power (no Y-cable and one less USB port needed)
@justtoreply: Not sure about this drive, but I have an LG external BluRay drive (USB 2.0) and my Macbook can power it just fine with only the one USB port. Results will vary, but you won't always need 2 depending on how much power your system can provide. But yeah, USB 3.0 will be more reliable in that regard.
@justtoreply: Exactly why I've held off on buying a portable, I want a full size burner in an enclosure can't find one anywhere!
@Ronnie23:
Doesn't that then rather reflect that the port you plug it into is USB 3.0 and can supply the higher current, not that the peripheral is capable of USB 3.0 speeds?
It probably detects the number of pins so that it doesn't oversupply power to older devices. So, no. The device would have to be USB3 to receive the additional power.
I believe the USB 2.0 interface maxes out around 33-40MB/sec or so. So that somewhat equates to a maximum BD speed of 8x. They usually advertise the speed lower than this as being the maximum throughput (6X - 27MB/sec).
Whilst your point is correct, as per my comment above, it's not really a relevant restriction. Should be USB3 for power requirements.
Paying extras for usb3.0 though http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/PIONEER-USB-BLU-RAY-EXTERNAL-Slim…
Depends how much you end up using it I guess…
Plus it still comes with a Y cable http://www.cdrinfo.pl/artykuly/gfx/recenzja-pioneer-bdr-xd05…
Y cable need I'm pretty certain depends on the actual physical port supplying the device, not the speed rating. I've bought single cable USB 2.0 adapters and caddies and they work without a y cable or second power supply if plugged into a 3.0 or just a high current port. A lot of it gets down to how good the USB hub or motherboard is and how many devices plugged in. And that really does vary pretty badly. Modern laptops are nowhere near as bad as old ones, where even with a Y cable they didn't work as both port had the same sh###y power supply - so you'd actually need to plug the other end of the wire in to a mains powered USB hub or powerboard with USB power.
Ive got one of these that I use on my NUC HTPC.. works a treat.. great little units..