Question Recommendations on external USB 3.0+ thin 4K blu-ray disc player that actually works for PC, Laptop!

Harry_Wild

Senior member
Dec 14, 2012
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I purchased a compact size PC case that has no spot for a disc player in it! I tried already some half a dozen external USB 3.0+ thin 4K blu-ray disc player. All are external USB 3.0+ thin 4K blu-ray disc player-burner combos.

I sick of returning these USB 3.0+ 4K blu-ray external disc players/burners that cost anywhere from $60 to name brands that are up to the $250s. Neither of them works right! Maybe it is the quality control, I am just do not want to go through the hassle of packaging it up and sending it back again. Plus, there is a database that tracks returns now and do not want to be blacklisted from retailers in the future.

I would rather have the USB 3.0 instead of the USB 2.0 standard!

Any recommendations would be appreciated!
 
Last edited:

Muadib

Lifer
May 30, 2000
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Paperdoc

Platinum Member
Aug 17, 2006
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For any such device you must look closely at its specs for the POWER required. All standard USB 3.2 ports (everything these days in USB3 is USB 3.2 Genn, and Gen1 is what used to be called just USB3 or 3.0 or 3.1) can supply power at 5 VDC up to 0.9 A. In the field of HARD DRIVES, any HDD designed for desktop use needs MORE power than that, so it must be mounted in its own enclosure that includes its own power supply "wall wart" to provide what the HDD needs. The "Laptop Hard Drives" sold for use with USB 3.2 systems are specially designed to just fit into that current limit so they DO work, but they have slower operations to keep power usage down. I do NOT know whether such a general story applies to multi-function optical drives. But within HDD's, the heavy current users are the motors that spin the disks and move the heads, and optical drives have similar parts. There are NO Hard drives (not even the USB 3.2 Laptop Hard Drives) that can operate solely on the power from a USB2 port - its current is limited to 0.5 A.

I could not find the current requirement specs of that Pioneer unit linked above by Muadib, but its web pages specifically say it WILL work on a standard USB 3.2 port. It does caution that sometimes (and certainly on a USB2 port) the unit's power needs are not met by a USB port, and you can buy an additional adapter to plug into that drive and provide extra power.

IF the optical drive unit specifies (as the Pioneer unit above does) that it works with just the USB 3.2 port for power be aware that it is VERY likely it just barely fits within the max current available. This means you can NOT attach ANY other device to that same port. You cannot use it on a USB 3.2 HUB unless that Hub also is using its own "wall wart" power module to supply ALL the power requirements to every port of the Hub.