With a huge increase in the trend of making personal computer thinner and thinner, most of the companies nowadays are eliminating one of the most important functions of the computer, and that is none other that the CD/DVD drive itself! Now, the CD/DVD drives are not that thin, as compared to the computer itself and hence, they do not fit in the computer. So, to solve this problem, the best alternative is to buy an external DVD burner for your Mac or Windows PC. But wait, there are way too many external DVD burner or USB DVD burner out there in the market. So, which is the best DVD burner that you should buy? Don't worry, we have listed the top 10 best external DVD burner for Mac as well as for Windows.
- Best External Bluray Drive For Mac 2018
- External Blu Ray Drive Mac
- External Blu-ray Burner Firewire
- Best External Blu-ray Burner For Mac
- External Blu Ray Burner
Recommended DVD Burner Software for Mac and Windows
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This external Blu-Ray burner drive supports Blu-Ray burning at the speed of 12x maximally. In fact, it takes about 11 minutes to burn a BD-R SL. The technology used in designing this disc (OTS technology) enables it to perform a test burn prior to burning a disc.
- Top 5 Best External Blu-Ray Drives Most laptops don’t have a CD/DVD drive, let alone a Blu-Ray drive. Having an external one will let you playback and burn Blu-Ray discs, and watch your favourite movies in all its HD glory.
- The drive is a stylish and sturdy device, which will be an optimal choice for the users of Apple devices. You can easily put this external Blu-ray burner in your laptop bag or backpack.
- Samsung SE-506BB/TSBD 6X USB2.0 External Slim Blu-ray Writer Drive. One of the things that makes the Samsung External Blu-ray writer drive stand out from the rest is its simplicity. There’s no need for a ton of cables to get this one working. Simply plug in the USB connection and the Samsung is ready to go.
- The BDR-XD04 slim external USB 2.0 BD/DVD/CD burner is the next generation Blu-ray Disc burner from Pioneer. This external DVD Drive allows users to watch standard and 3D blu-ray disc titles, author high-definition Blu-ray Disc content while also delivering the ability for high-capacity data storage with the included cyberlink software.
Part 1. Top 5 Best External DVD Burner for Mac
#1. The USB Super Drive by Apple
If you are using a Mac, then chances are that you will most of the accessories made by Apple and the USB Super Drive is one of those accessories that is manufactured by Apple. With an incredible design and thin look, this USB Super Drive will never disappoint you. Like the Mac, this USB Super Drive has an aluminium body and will look like it is a part of the Mac. But like all other Apple devices, this will not come at a cheap price. If you buy it, then this device will add to the beauty of the Mac. Also, if you want something that matches the design of the Mac, then this currently the only option.
Price: $79
#2. The Ultra Slim Portable Drive by LG
If you do not want to spend a lot of money behind a DVD drive, then this Ultra Slim portable Drive by LG is the best option for you. This Drive has excellent looks and most importantly, this drive supports M-Discs. M-Discs are nothing but a most durable Disc which lasts way longer than the traditional Discs that we use. So, for those who transfer really important data and cannot change their Discs much, then they can buy an M-Disc and use this drive to use the M-Disc. Remember, not all the DVD drives support M-Disc.
Price: $33
#3. The Ultra Slim DVD Drive by Samsung
This Drive is probably the best substitute for the LG's Ultra Slim Drive. This is also slimmer the LG's DVD Drive and looks excellent. Amazingly, even after being a DVD Drive, this device is only 14mm thick! This DVD drive is the slimmest DVD Drive currently available in the market. But if you are thinking that is drive must be expensive, then you are wrong! This DVD Drive is even cheaper than the LG's DVD Drive.
Price: $25
#4. Slim External Drive by Asus
This DVD drive is a bit different that the others mentioned here. All the other DVD drive has slots in them where you can enter the Disc, kind of like a SIM Card Slot. But this DVD Drive has a Disc Tray where you can put the Disc, and then press the button on the Drive to insert the Disc in the Drive. If you are a fan of this function, then you should definitely buy this Drive but be advised that this DVD Drive is a bit thicker than the other Drives mentioned here.
Price: $33
#5. The Slim Blu Ray Drive by Samsung
If you use a lot of Blu Ray Discs, then this Slim Blu Ray Drive by Samsung is the best option and the biggest advantage of this Drive is that it supports Blu Ray Discs. But don't think that you can get this Drive at a cheap price. Since it supports Blu Ray Discs, it costs similar to the Apple's Super Drive. Also, one of the most amazing features of this DVD Drive is that it consumes a lot less power than the other DVD Drives.
Price: $79
Part 2. Top 5 Best External DVD Burner for Windows
#1. The Smasung Slim External DVD Drive
This DVD Drive is one of the most fastest DVD Drives currently available in the market and moreover, this DVD Drive supports Blu Ray! This has a USB 2.0 interface and also has a Disc Tray and is only 12.7 mm thick. This device is very slim and very attractive.
Price: $79
#2. The Asus External DVD Drive
This DVD Drive is one the most newest DVD drive available in the market and is extremely fast. This DVD Drive also supports Blu Ray and is very much beautiful. If you are looking for something slim and beautiful, then this might be the device that you should buy. This DVD Drive has very high quality and fast burning speed.
Price: $65
#3. The LG Super Multi Drive
Best External Bluray Drive For Mac 2018
This DVD Drive has a unique curved design and is very beautiful. This is very compact and weighs only 380 grams. This DVD Drive is also consumes a lot less power than the other drives and has a USB 2.0 interface.
Price: $24
#4. The Samsung External DVD Drive
This DVD Drive is an excellent looking device and has the latest USB interface, that is USB 3.0. This drive also has Disc Tray and has an incredible design. This drive is also extremely thin, only 14mm and is very lightweight.
Price: $25
#5. The Dell External DVD Drive
This DVD Drive is very easy to use and is fairly slim and good looking. It is only 14mm this and weighs around 200 grams. This Drive comes pre loaded with the Cyber Link Media Player and uses very less power.
External Blu Ray Drive Mac
Price: $30
It may have beaten out HD-DVD in the bloody battle to be the high definition optical drive standard, but in the time since the format wars ended, Blu-ray Disc still has a lot to do to gain any real traction in the desktop computer realm. Indeed, Apple has done its best to downplay the relevance of any kind of optical drive in this new world of streaming media—the MacBook Air ships without an internal optical drive, its DVD Studio Pro application has been almost totally ignored in the last two Final Cut Studio releases, and the company provides no way of playing movies released on Blu-ray on Macs running OS X.
External Blu-ray Burner Firewire
But while Apple hasn’t exactly embraced Blu-ray, a couple of the company’s applications (Final Cut Pro [] and Compressor []) now allow you to create Blu-ray projects and burn them to attached Blu-ray drives to watch on the Blu-ray player in your living room.
If you’re considering adding a second optical drive for DVD copying, or just want faster burn speeds than your older optical drive can deliver, you might be considering a Blu-ray capable burner. Apple has yet to offer Blu-ray as a standard or build-to-order option, but a few third party companies have been quietly testing the waters and marketing external Blu-ray burners to Mac users.
Best External Blu-ray Burner For Mac
With its expensive hardware and media, combined with limited support from the OS, Blu-ray adoption has been slow on the Mac. However, the format's high-capacity media and HD capabilities are attracting more users, and with an increasing number of companies offering drives and applications to fill in the gaps, the rate of adoption should increase, if only modestly.
We recently looked at a few Blu-ray burners (namely, the LaCie d2 Blu-ray Professional Drive (), the Buffalo Media Station 8X External Blu-ray Writer (), the OWC Mercury Pro 8X Blu-ray External (), and the MCE 8X Blu-ray External Recordable Drive (), and can offer a few tips on what to look for when shopping for a Blu-ray drive.
External Blu Ray Burner
Blu-ray buying advice
Connection: From eSATA to FireWire 800 and FireWire 400 to USB 2.0, we saw a wide variety of different connections, but surprisingly, didn’t find eSATA to be faster on any of the drives we tested. In fact, the USB 2.0 connection on the Buffalo MediaStation was faster than FireWire 800 or 400 on some competing drives. If you haven’t already added an eSATA card to your Mac, a Blu-ray burner is not a good reason to do so.
Software: If you want to burn discs you can watch via a Blu-ray player on your HD TV, you’ll need software to go with your Blu-ray burner. Roxio offers the High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-in for Toast, a $20 plug-in to its Toast Titanium application that lets you burn HD movies for playback. Windows users have access to software that allows them to watch Blu-ray movies on their PCs, but such capability has yet to make its way to Mac OS X. Some external Blu-ray burners bundle Toast Titanium with their drives.
Advantages: Even if you don’t envision using Blu-ray technology immediately, an external optical drive will often be faster than the internal drive you already have. The Blu-ray drives we looked at may also support more media types than your built-in SuperDrive—the iMac we use for burning DVDs in our office doesn’t support DVD-R (dual layer), only DVD+R (dual layer), for example. Having multiple optical drives also makes duplicating optical media much more convenient. And finally, Blu-ray media comes in either 25GB single-layer capacity or 50GB dual-layer capacity, quite a bit more storage space than the 8.5GB on a standard dual-layer DVD.
Cost: Blu-ray burners cost significantly more than standard DVD burners right now, but that cost is coming down. In fact, many of the companies cut prices between the time they shipped us their Blu-ray burning drives and the time we were through testing them.
Our favorite Blu-ray drives
The Buffalo Media Station 8X External Blu-ray Writer () isn't the prettiest, but it gets the job done the fastest, and all via a USB connection. If you’re looking for an external optical drive that does it all, including burn high definition discs playable on your widescreen TV, the MediaStation 8X Blu-ray Writer should be on your list. [$350 (Compare current prices); Buffalo Technology]
If you have other LaCie d2 drives on your desktop, consider the LaCie d2 Blu-ray Professional BD-R, BD-RE Drive. It’s an average performer and worked flawlessly with FireWire 400. [$430 (Compare current prices); LaCie]
The MCE 8x Blu-ray Disc External Recordable Drive () is a relatively speedy optical drive. Its USB 2.0 connection worked flawlessly, creating no expensive coasters during our testing. Its eSATA performance was no faster than USB and the drive couldn’t burn discs with Toast when connected in that way. If you intend to use the drive with USB, it’s worth a look. [$349 (Buy directly from MCE); MCE]
The OWC Mercury Pro 8X Blu-ray Pioneer BDR-203 External () drive turned in respectable speed test results. We did have trouble using the USB connection for burning a dual-layer DVD in Toast, but with three other connection options available, many Mac users can overlook that bug. [$350 (Buy directly from OWC); OWC]
[James Galbraith is Macworld’s Lab director.]
[Editor's note: This article originally posted on 9/23/2009. It has been updated to reflect changes in the market and with links to product reviews.]
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