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USB 3.0 Blu-ray Drive for a rMBP.

R

ReddestDream

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 22, 2010
89
2
North Carolina
I have a Retina MacBook Pro coming in (hopefully! :rolleyes:) a few weeks, and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a USB 3.0 Blu-ray drive for it.

I know of several USB 2.0 drives that people have said are compatible with the native software in Mac OS X for burning and reading (not movies!), but, considering USB 3.0 is a new feature on Macs, I haven't found any reviews for USB 3.0 Blu-ray drives that mention Macs.

Is a USB 3.0 drive worth the risk, or should I just stick with the USB 2.0 ones for now? Does anyone have any suggestions for a particular drive?

Thanks! ;)
 
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You do not need an optical USB 3 drive since it can barely saturate a USB 2 connection. There is basically no advantage.
 
theSeb said:
You do not need an optical USB 3 drive since it can barely saturate a USB 2 connection. There is basically no advantage.
Click to expand...

Are you sure ? We have a Asus USB 3.0 Bluray writer at work. It works quite fast in a USB 3.0 port but much slower in a normal 2.0 port.

Im talking about burning data to a 50GB Bluray disc
 
varunkrish said:
Are you sure ? We have a Asus USB 3.0 Bluray writer at work. It works quite fast in a USB 3.0 port but much slower in a normal 2.0 port.

Im talking about burning data to a 50GB Bluray disc
Click to expand...

Don't forget that portable BR writers are either 6x or 8x, which means a max theoretical speed of n X 4.5 MB/s. This equates to 27 MB/s and 36 MB/s respectively. USB has a real world speed of around 35 to 40 MB/s. Thereofore USB 2 is good enough for these drives. Some desktop BR drives are 12x, which is a theoretical speed of 54 MB/s. This is a bit more than USB 2 can handle, but eSATA can handle it easily. USB 3 is overkill. The difference in real world speed in using a 12x drive via USB 2 vs 3 is not worth the price difference in my opinion. Maybe it's different in the US, but USB 3 BR drivers are quite a lot more expensive than USB 2 models in the UK.

I use an LG BR 12x external writer, which has eSATA and USB 2. I've used it a lot using both connections and the real world difference is not huge. Unless you are burning BRs or ripping movies all day long, I don't consider USB 3 connectivity a necessity. Theortical speeds are great, but in the real world the LG burns at around 7.1x using eSATA and at about 5.4x over USB 2. It's not enough for me to pull out the Lacie eSATA TB hub when I am using the burner.
 
theSeb said:
Don't forget that portable BR writers are either 6x or 8x, which means a max theoretical speed of n X 4.5 MB/s. This equates to 27 MB/s and 36 MB/s respectively. USB has a real world speed of around 35 to 40 MB/s. Thereofore USB 2 is good enough for these drives. Some desktop BR drives are 12x, which is a theoretical speed of 54 MB/s. This is a bit more than USB 2 can handle, but eSATA can handle it easily. USB 3 is overkill. The difference in real world speed in using a 12x drive via USB 2 vs 3 is not worth the price difference in my opinion. Maybe it's different in the US, but USB 3 BR drivers are quite a lot more expensive than USB 2 models in the UK.

I use an LG BR 12x external writer, which has eSATA and USB 2. I've used it a lot using both connections and the real world difference is not huge. Unless you are burning BRs or ripping movies all day long, I don't consider USB 3 connectivity a necessity. Theortical speeds are great, but in the real world the LG burns at around 7.1x using eSATA and at about 5.4x over USB 2. It's not enough for me to pull out the Lacie eSATA TB hub when I am using the burner.
Click to expand...


Yes anything USB 3.0 has a premium price tag attached to it and these Blu Ray writers are not an exception. I'm a huge fan of eSATA on my Windows machines , use it regularly for backups using a dock. But problem is that eSATA barely gets any publicity these days compared to USB 3.0.

Here is the drive we have

http://www.asus.com/Optical_Storage/External_Slim_Bluray_Drive/BW12D1SU/#specifications

Like you said its 12X

Wish we get native support for BluRay in future macs !
 
Most of the time with external optical drives, the limiting factors are usually the drives themselves and not the enclosure.

The only real way to tell is to take "this specific model optical drive" and place it inside a USB2 enclosure, test and then place it inside a USB3 enclosure and test.

@ Tomasmekean
You went from a portable laptop low power bus powered optical drive to a desktop optical drive with more power. In almost every instance a device that plugs into AC power will be faster and more powerful than those that use power from a USB port.
 
I've been asking myself this same question before deciding on which BR drive to buy for my Mac for ripping my Bluray collection. My Mac has USB 3.0, but as the others have pointed out, it may not be worth the price.

For example, that LG Bluray drive mentioned above from Best Buy seems fast on the surface (pun intended), but it's BR read speed is still only 8X. So if you're only going to use the drive for ripping, then USB 3.0 is really not going to do any good. It's a bit faster on writing, so there could be some real-world advantage there.
 
Tomasmekean said:
I purchased an LG 16x External USB 3.0 Blu-Ray and so far so good!
Click to expand...

Is it still working well? There's one positive review from a mac owner (you?) and the other reviews are PC owners who gave it 1-star.

Also, anyone know anything about the external ASUS 12x Blu-Ray Writer Model BW-12D1S-U/BLK/G/AS with USB 3.0 ? At newegg and amazon it's around the same price as the LG external drive.
 
Huginnmuninn said:
Is it still working well? There's one positive review from a mac owner (you?) and the other reviews are PC owners who gave it 1-star.

Also, anyone know anything about the external ASUS 12x Blu-Ray Writer Model BW-12D1S-U/BLK/G/AS with USB 3.0 ? At newegg and amazon it's around the same price as the LG external drive.
Click to expand...

Yes sending mine back right now.. Imac 2012 and all it would do is make coasters!!! Worked fine on windows.
 
Huginnmuninn said:
Also, anyone know anything about the external ASUS 12x Blu-Ray Writer Model BW-12D1S-U/BLK/G/AS with USB 3.0 ? At newegg and amazon it's around the same price as the LG external drive.
Click to expand...

Burn speeds are very slow. I'm going to try to convince ASUS to swap it. -1 for the ASUS. DO NOT BUY.
 
Old thread, but...

I bought this Archgon from Seatech via Amazon.

USB 3.0 but works fine on USB 2.0. It has two USB plugs so it can draw sufficient power to work. Mine is connected to a powered USB 2.0 hub (which you'll probably want to have, given the location of the two USB ports on a new MacBook Pro retina). Rips Blu-Rays fine (using MakeMKV), plays Blu-Rays fine (Blu-Ray Player), and burns CDs just as fast as the internal optical drive in my previous MacBook Pro.
 
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JML54 said:
Old thread, but...

I bought this Archgon from Seatech via Amazon.

USB 3.0 but works fine on USB 2.0. It has two USB plugs so it can draw sufficient power to work. Mine is connected to a powered USB 2.0 hub (which you'll probably want to have, given the location of the two USB ports on a new MacBook Pro retina). Rips Blu-Rays fine (using MakeMKV), plays Blu-Rays fine (Blu-Ray Player), and burns CDs just as fast as the internal optical drive in my previous MacBook Pro.
Click to expand...


I've been looking for also. That looks nice. So u got that software so u could play blurays ?
 
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