OWC Mercury Pro 16X Blu-ray, 16X DVD, 48X CD Read/Write Solution

I want to be able to archive data and photos to M-DISC so they wont get lost or erased over time. This let me keep my M-DISC drive because most new computers dont have 5 1/4 in slots for drives anymore, and even if they come with an optical drive, its highly unlikely its M-DISC write compatible. The enclosure is well built out of aluminum and the drive mounted solidly. I appreciated the grommets to isolate vibrations. The power supply is rated at 3 Amps, so it should handle just about any 5 1/4 in form-factor drive. It has a USB 3.0 interface, but most of my data transfers wont need the top speed because the optical disks just usually arent that fast. I like that it has a power switch, so if I want to turn it off, I dont have to pull the power cable out. Its a bit pricey, especially considering the price of most bare 5 1/4 in optical drives these days, but it is solidly built and will let you keep your drive for many years to come.

This is a solid case. It has a vibration dampening 8 screw mount for your Optical drive. It looks fantastic. Its easy to assemble, and looks amazing. Its just a lot of money for a metal box and a $5 adapter. Add to that my most significant complaint: the cords, both power and data, are too short. Seriously, this is a unit that is designed to be placed on a desk. It should come with a 6ft power cable and 6ft usb 3.0 cable, not a 3 of each. They literally made the case amazing and cheaped out on the cables!

This Mercury Pro 5.25 Optical Drive External enclosure has worked very nicely. My only concern is that you need to be sure your ODD is short enough to fit. The first ODD I grabbed from my supply was too long to fit. However, I had a slightly shorter ODD on hand that fit perfectly and works like a charm.

Im using it as a CD burner on MacOS (yeah, some folks still burn CDs, were a rare breed these days). It burns CDs fine, no incompatibilities, but Im not getting the advertised 48x speed. I havent timed it, but its more in the range of 16-24x. Oddly, it doesnt do Constant-Angular-Velocity when burning CDs, its some sort of Constant-Linear-Velocity or hybrid, which is odd, and might explain the lower performance.

A bit pricey for what it is. Also, the photo makes the product look white when its actually silver. Not a deal breaker, but was disappointed it wasnt what I was expecting.

First, Im quite impressed with the build quality of this enclosure. it feels sturdy and well made overall. There is some drive compatibility issues, but they do warn you what size drives it will fit. I had a blu-ray reader/dvd burner drive and an actual bluray burner. The former fit in this enclosure pretty well. The holes on the side only aligned on one side due to the PCB size, but I got it in and it works great. The second drive was too long for this enclosure. If the PCB was about half the size on the inside, the drive would have fit. I would recommend that you measure your drives before purchasing. The USB cable is pretty short that is included, but the power cord is a decent length.

I successfully burned a dozen BDR M-Discs using this drive, and they all passed their integrity tests 100%. Everything went flawlessly. I used K3B on Manjaro Linux (KDE) for the software. The USB enclosure works perfectly as plug-n-play, out of the box, and the drive within had a success rate of 100%, with full verification, of engraving a dozen write-once M-Discs. (I even made ECC files for the ISOs using dvdisaster version 0.79.9) I might update this post to see how well it works with BDXL M-Discs (100GB). For those of us archiving irreplaceable memories for future generations, I recommend you leave extensive notes within the sleeve or jewel case of your engraved M-Disc so that whoever comes across it will have full instructions on how to read the data, while understanding the technology and history behind it. Maybe make a time capsule and include a USB cable, type-A to type-C USB adapter, a Blu-ray burner/drive, and power cable (such as this one), and anything else that someone long into the future could use. Remember, technology moves fast. There will come a time where its plausible that USB (of any form) no longer exists; Blu-ray players are no longer manufactured and its rare to find any in working condition; the x86 CPU architecture is no longer used in any computer systems; and so on. Dont believe me? How easy is it to come across a working Hi8 player without sacrificing too much cash? How easy will it be to come across working VHS players 10 or 20 years from now? How easy is it to retrieve the audio from reel-to-reel tapes? All of these things were readily accessible within the generations of people alive today in their childhood years. Thats not very far into our past as humans! So consider what 50, 100, 200 years from now will look like? Will someone be able to read what you engraved on your M-Disc? Will they have the software and hardware to do so? Just because the disc is still in pristine condition and the data exists in a perfect state of bits and bytes, theres no guarantee that someone will be able to retrieve whats on it. Make it as easy as possible for future generations, whatever it takes. Good luck. As for the drive and enclosure itself, it feels rugged and well built. The chassis is metal, feels like brushed aluminum, and the bottom side has four plastic rises to reduce vibration while it is in use. Of all the options on the market, this is very likely the best one out there.

With previous burners, Ive had to deal with bad burns for one reason or another. With this product Ive created 6 discs without a single coaster being made! Bravo! Would highly recommend this product! Just plug and burn! I use my own personal burning SW since none ships with this item.

I bought this external drive case for an old internal HD-DVD disc drive. Installation was a breeze. The external drive unit is well made and of high quality. After plugging it in, nothing worked. Checked connections, then tried again a few times. Still nothing. After some head scratching and saying a few choice words, I pulled the drive out. I plugged in a new Blu-ray drive and it worked perfectly fine. Discovered the old drives power requirements exceeded the power output of the OWC external drive case. Bummer. Check the power requirement of your internal drive for compatibility before you buy.

This external drive enclosure was purchased to house a blu-ray device and it does it perfectly. The USB 3 connector allows me to move it between devices (pc and mac). Also whats really nice is that it is metal and not some cheap plastic housing. Well worth the money in the long run.