USB optical drive recommendation for problem discs?

[RecklessMission]

Posted this in the sticky thread previously, but no reply yet. Guessing traffic to that thread is thin these days.

Is there a list of the most accurate/secure outboard USB drives for 2017/2018 somewhere, or can anybody make any good recommendations?

I'm currently using two LG GP65NB60 with my MacBook Pro, and they've been doing a decent job so far, but I have a growing pile of problem discs (insecure rips or errors) so I'm looking for a good backup USB optical drive for those.

Thanks!

[Spoon]

Re: USB optical drive recommendation for problem discs?

You should be able to find most of the top drives on ebay.

[RecklessMission]

Re: USB optical drive recommendation for problem discs?

You should be able to find most of the top drives on ebay.

Thanks, Spoon. Most of those are internal drives. Was hoping for simple, portable, external USB drive. Can you, or anybody, recommend what'd be required to connect and utilize an internal drive with a laptop?

Alternatively, is there any correlation between brand and quality? For example, your top drive is a Lite-On drive, so would this Lite-On external drive be a worthwhile alternative? Sorry for the noob questions, but I'm only tech savvy up to a point. Thanks!

[garym]

Re: USB optical drive recommendation for problem discs?

you need an drive enclosure. You install the internal drive and then connect to your computer with usb. I use this one. It seems to be no longer available, but look at the listing of other things people buy on that page.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0093HKFYW/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[schmidj]

Re: USB optical drive recommendation for problem discs?

You don't really need a drive enclosure, the drive is in a metal box already. What you need is a SATA to USB converter that works with DVD recorders (not all do) and a power supply (brick) to run the drive. I've used Sabrent with success. I used to use the C35U, but they stopped making that. I think the most recent one I bought was a USB-DSC8. The drive just sits on the desk next to my laptop when I travel. Full size internal drives seem to function much better than any laptop or small external drives.

[Oggy]

Re: USB optical drive recommendation for problem discs?

You don't really need a drive enclosure, the drive is in a metal box already. What you need is a SATA to USB converter that works with DVD recorders (not all do) and a power supply (brick) to run the drive. I've used Sabrent with success. I used to use the C35U, but they stopped making that. I think the most recent one I bought was a USB-DSC8. The drive just sits on the desk next to my laptop when I travel. Full size internal drives seem to function much better than any laptop or small external drives.

I agree with this. I do have a slimline Samsung drive, but compared to the full size drive's performance, I wouldn't want to recommend it. Reviews seem to put the performance close to the Lite-On, but I cannot confirm this.

I use a generic USB2 to powered SATA / PATA, which allows use of the older ide drives, which you can pick up very cheaply. Enclosures such as the Vantec are very neat, but the powered adaptor allows easy swapping of drives.

[RecklessMission]

Re: USB optical drive recommendation for problem discs?

Thanks, all. I pulled the trigger and ordered a Vantec NST-536S3-BK external enclosure, and a Lite-On IHAS124-14 optical drive. Fourth optical drive in two months. Fingers crossed. If this thing won't rip my problem discs, I'm just going to have to get comfortable with a bunch of "burst mode" rips.

[no1funkyguy]

Re: USB optical drive recommendation for problem discs?

Thanks, all. I pulled the trigger and ordered a Vantec NST-536S3-BK external enclosure, and a Lite-On IHAS124-14 optical drive. Fourth optical drive in two months. Fingers crossed. If this thing won't rip my problem discs, I'm just going to have to get comfortable with a bunch of "burst mode" rips.

Sorry to revive such an old thread, but could you tell me if you found a noticeable difference with the problem discs when using the Vantec/Lite-On combination? I rip a lot of audiobooks, and I'm looking for something decent to rip some of the more recalcitrant discs in my collection, using my M1 Max MacBook Pro and dBpoweramp. I'm currently using the Apple superdrive which is fine for most of the discs I've tried, but I picked up a cheapo external drive because I'd tried ripping a few different copies of the same audiobook and was having problems, but the cheapo drive actually ended up scratching some discs. Obviously the external enclosure is quite expensive from Amazon, and I don't want to sink the money if it's not worth it, but I'd rather buy once and cry once than have to deal with anymore problems. Cheers!