
- #BLURAY EXTERNAL DRIVE FOR MAC MOVIE#
- #BLURAY EXTERNAL DRIVE FOR MAC DRIVERS#
- #BLURAY EXTERNAL DRIVE FOR MAC WINDOWS 10#
Thin solution: Pioneer BDR-XD05B Slim Portable Blu-ray Writer. Speedy, but bulky: ASUS Powerful Blu-ray Drive with 16x Writing Speed and USB 3.0.
Other extras: All the drives we tested came with one-year warranties and claimed to support the archival M-DISC format, though we didn’t test those claims. The Mac mini Blu-ray drives offered here work well with the Mac mini and any type of Apple computer, including the MacBook and iMac. But if a drive comes with decent playback and burning software, that’s a plus. It weighs 10 ounces and measures 5.9 x 5.6 x 0.6-inches, making it par for the course in the Blu-ray external drive world. Free (but potentially illegal) solutions are available for all of those problems, which we cover in the Playing DVDs and Blu-rays section. The MthsTec Ultra Slim external Blu-ray player and DVD burner combo drive offers up a fantastic value (and a host of features). #BLURAY EXTERNAL DRIVE FOR MAC WINDOWS 10#
But macOS can’t play Blu-rays without extra software, Windows 10 can’t play Blu-rays or DVDs, and neither operating system includes software for burning video discs that you can play in DVD or Blu-ray players.
Usable software: Both Windows 10 and macOS offer tools for burning data to DVDs and Blu-ray discs, and macOS still includes a DVD player app for playing video discs. Sturdiness: Few external disc drives are pretty, but the case shouldn’t fall apart under light pressure, the connections shouldn’t be wobbly, and the buttons should work when you press them. #BLURAY EXTERNAL DRIVE FOR MAC DRIVERS#
Operating system support: All drives we tested were detected by Windows 10 and macOS 10.15 Catalina without our installing any additional software, and the operating systems’ built-in disc reading and burning features worked without requiring any extra drivers or configuration.
Almost all of the cables included with drives we tested had USB Type-A connectors on the computer’s end, but the inclusion of a USB-C cable or a USB-A–to–C adapter in the box is a nice bonus. On the drive’s end, we prefer the still-common Micro-USB port, though the larger Mini-USB is fine too (optical drives with USB-C ports are rare to nonexistent).
Connector and cable: Drives should use standard detachable USB cables so that a frayed or broken cable doesn’t ruin the entire drive. #BLURAY EXTERNAL DRIVE FOR MAC MOVIE#
Noise: All optical drives make noise, but the drive shouldn’t drown out the movie or show you’re trying to watch. Price: A good DVD drive shouldn’t cost more than $40, and a good Blu-ray drive should cost around $100. But if you’re burning or ripping discs, the rate at which a drive can move data from your computer’s hard drive to the disc or vice versa becomes more important. Speed: If all you’ll use your drive for is playing discs, just about any drive you buy will perform similarly. We didn’t require Blu-ray drives to support reading and writing to Ultra HD (or UHD, or 4K) Blu-ray discs, but we considered it a nice bonus if you didn’t have to pay much more for that feature. Read and write capability: DVD drives must read and write DVDs and CDs, and Blu-ray drives must read and write Blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs.