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

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.

It even works well as a DVD burner/player. It needs certain software for making and burning BD/s but the minimum comes on a disk with it. But apparently Nero software will not allow the playing of factory Blu-Ray movies. It's supposed to play ones that you make yourself though. I know nothing else about it's abilities right now other than it is willing to let me create and supposedly burn my own movies with my old Nero 8 software.I don't know if other available software will play factory BluRay movies.

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.

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.

Works well, just need to update drivers.

receive the drive about an hour ago. I followed the instructions on the first page and immediately there was a burning plastic smell! I immediately unplugged the unit!I then look for the Y cable to page 2 of the instructions say I should have and I could not find one in the box. I then hooked up the AC power as per instructions, turn on the power, blue light came on, heard and felt something happening and then press the button to open the drive. Nothing happened!Another "dead on arrival" from ASUS! it looks like an awful lot of people are having this problem, after I look at some of the one star ratings!With this, what looks like, ASUS is using Amazon to dump faulty products on the unsuspecting customers!If the computer system I am building comes to life after many defective parts and a complete lack of information both in the descriptions and from their customer service. You have to beware of the customer service reps as it may take several tries to get through to them, then it's a hassle with the language barrier to tell them what the problem is, then they say just a moment I will check and is it okay if they put me on hold, I said yes, and then maybe 5 to 10 minutes later somebody comes on and wants to go through the whole process of my name my phone number etc. etc. and then put me on hold again another five minute wait or so and they came back online and it must've taken another five minutes for them to give me an answer on what computer case would work as the board I ordered was NOT an ATX motherboard but some other design! Buyer beware!!

I was a little nervous after some of the reviews talking about the button on front and the switch in back. I dont get it, the switch on the back is easy to push on and off and the button on the front works just fine as well. Via Itunes I tested this against an LG BP50NB40 slim. I ripped a rather Large Norah Jones CD (forgot which one it was). The LG took 3 minutes 19 secs. The Asus took 2 minutes 7 seconds. The extra speed is making the cd ripping process much less painful. Could see the extra speed show up when ripping a dvd via MakeMKV as well. I also like that that opening it is electronic. After the CD finishes in Itunes, I just click the eject icon with my mouse, pop in a new CD and hit the front button on the Asus and off it goes. Super happy with the purchase. On a side note, and I will need to see if there is a way around it. I planned on using one with MakeMKV (since you can select which blu ray device to use) to rip my movies for plex, and then at the same time use Itunes and the Asus to rip CDs. Seems Itunes wont recognize the Asus while Make MKV is ripping a movie. Odd.