ASUS Powerful Blu-ray Drive with 16x Writing Speed and USB 3.0 for Both Mac/PC Optical Drive BW-16D1X-U

This is a little larder than I was expecting (this is meant to stay out on your desk) but it feels VERY sturdy, it's very quiet when running, the power cord is thick and doesn't feel flimsy at all, The tray ejects and retracts very smoothly (good build quality), and it's fast! It also comes with some pretty decent software, but there's a lot.

Absolutely adore this drive, except for one or two caveats, front door is a little noisy tap on it goes away other than that perfect reads everything super fast and using it to archive movies works wonderfully, it's expensive but well worth it

I chose this model because I read that it was more compatible with macs. I have a Mac and a PC and I've used this with both and had minimal issues. For my mac I used WinX DVD ripper and MakeMKV for my PC. I've used this for both Blu rays and DVDs and have been pleased with the results though I'm surprised how time consuming the process is. Most movies in my experience take over an hour to be converted to MP4 so it's definitely a task digitizing your library. This is the only external drive I've used so I have nothing to compare it to but I've been quite pleased with it. The only complaint I have is that the physical eject button often doesn't work or respond. I've had no issue right clicking and ejecting from my computer but the physical button doesn't want to work unless the unit has been recently switched on. If the button isn't working and I turn it off and back on it works but nobody wants to have to do that every time they need to change a disc. It can be bypassed by ejecting from your computer so it's an issue that can be easily dealt with but for that reason I can't give 5 stars. Other than that I have no complaints. This has been a very useful tool for getting all my media in one place. It's not loud and is instantly recognized by both my computers. Nobody wants to switch out discs constantly and with this I've been able to get all my movies in one place and I can watch them without paying a monthly fee. If that's something you're looking to do and you're both a PC and Mac user this will be perfect.

I was a fool and tried to run a cracked disc at high speed and the disc exploded inside (100% not their fault, only mine). I cleared out all the broken pieces and ran another disc... all good! I was worried I had damaged the drive but was very surprised, impressed and happy it survived! This drive is heavy but I'm guessing I should be happy it is because it may have not survived if it wasn't made a sturdy.

Good optical drive. About the size of a Harry Potter book. The on switch in the back was confusing because you have to slide it left/right instead of flicking a switch or pressing a button. Eject button is a little weird, too. It's not obvious and you have to press it towards the top of the button for it to register.That said, it reads DVDs and Blue-Rays (not 4k UHD). Works well with third party software for digitally archiving your personal physical media collection as advertised. I have not burned a disk yet and probably won't because that's not why I bought this. I can't compare the read/write speed to other drives because this is the first I've had, but it feels fast. There have been a small handful of DVDs where it couldn't recognize it, but I can't say that's not because the media is old.

I got the Blu-Ray drive because I needed a drive that could burn Blu-Ray discs. (Obvious, right?) I already have a DVD burner that has worked fine, but I wanted to use discs that have more storage capacity. So this drive was delivered and it worked fine for the first week or so that I used it. I used it to burn Blu-Ray discs as well as DVD9s. I liked the fact that it burned a DVD9 faster than the other DVD burner I had.I didn't need to use it for a few weeks after that, so it just sat there unused. Then I needed to use it again to back up some larger files, but I was only needed to use a DVD9 disc. So I inserted the DVD9 and after about 4 minutes the drive popped it out with an error message about a write error. I tried another and got the same result. These DVD9 discs were the same ones I have used for a while because I purchased a stack of them and haven't used them up yet. They worked fine before on this burner, so why not now? I tried a disc in the other DVD burner and it burned the files just fine the first time.I had noticed that the Asus drive will seemingly randomly disconnect and reconnect every once in a while. It seemed strange, but I didn't see that it made any difference, so I ignored that it did this. Perhaps now, I'm thinking, this might be part of the problem. Who knows -- I certainly don't know enough about these devices to determine that. All I know is that it no longer works.I logged on to Amazon and completed the form to request a return. When I submitted the form I got a message saying that I would be contacted by the seller within 48 hours. Well, that was over a week ago and no contact. I've purchased Asus products before. They're good products. Like any manufacturer, however, sometimes things don't go as well as you'd like. so I don't have a problem with the fact that the drive doesn't work. I just have a problem that the seller, Premier Audio Video, doesn't respond to requests for a return. Nothing. Not an email asking for more information -- just nothing.So buyer beware -- If you get a product that works fine, you will likely have no issues. But if you have a problem with the product and want to return to Premier Audio Video, I hope you have better luck than I do trying to communicate with them.