External Optical Drive

[iygnaug]

Hello,

I know this topic might have been discussed before. What is your preferred external optical disc drive? The apple superdrive costs $108, while i have seen Challenger selling some unknown brand for $35, and Asus brand for $53.

Most of the articles I found are not really updated for 2016, I guess no one really use optical drives in this age.

What is your take?

 

[shager]

I've used LiteOn, Samsung and LG drives with my macbook. no problem.

The brandless ones you mention are Neo which are oems for either LG or sony drives. There shouldn't be an problems with your MacBook and most drives.

 

[jace88]

I bought the Samsung SE-208 for $49 (member price; UP $59) from Challenger. Very happy with it as uses only single USB port, and it works on non Apple PC's (I used to only use a Macbook but now I have a Surface Pro 4, and my work Lenovo does not have an optical drive either - so it's great that it works with everything). It's slim, looks attractive (I got it in red) and works great.

Only missing feature was the lightscribe feature on some other models but at this price point, I can't complain. And have I mentioned it's very slim/light and only uses a single cable (my previous external DVD readers used the Y cable which was always a hassle to reach both sides of Macbook- and now that I have a SP4, only one usb port means it won't have worked!).

 

[faithsilence]

Have a Samsung drive in office, works great and like half the price of the ridiculously priced Apple Superdrive

 

[derrickgoh]

For normal use should be fine but last time when I was installing Win 8.1 off a disc there were issues as only Apple SuperDrive could boot off that disc.