Blu-ray drives

I can't vouch for bus powered drives, Fred, sorry, but yes, USB is just fine for MakeMKV blu ray ripping, I'd get an LG or other name brand 5.25" drive from Newegg on sale and stick it in a good enclosure. I have an LG in this Vantec:

http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-NST-530.../dp/B0019884K0

These days, a bare OEM drive on sale and an enclosure should run you about $100 total. If there's something at OWC that's 5.25" in a USB enclosure near that price, go for it. Just double check which brand drive is inside and then head over to the MakeMKV discussion forums to see if there's any model giving them problems. My LG burner from 2+ years ago is still going strong. Even a very slow drive over USB that is rip locked is still perfectly fast enough to rip a couple of new discs per week.

I think there's a popular site that discusses the nuances of different DVD and Blu-ray drives. But I haven't visited in years. Anyone recall the URL?

Does anyone have problems with the lenses of various DVD players getting too close to the media, and leaving scratches? I think my iMac did that to one of my disks recently, now I'm reluctant to try another. Hmmm ... I could probably insert some blank media and see if that gets scratched.

PG,

Videohelp perhaps?

The best site for me back in day, when the little nuances and firmware flashes mattered because official Apple support for optical drives and media really lagged, was CDFreaks...a few years ago it rebranded itself as MyCE. I haven't been back since huge hard drives became so affordable and I stopped burning to optical media.

http://www.amazon.com/Blu-Ray-USB-Ex...ref=pd_cp_pc_0

What about something like this? Some of the reviews say it works fine on Macs. One says better than 2X read speed.

Amazon shows 44 5-star reviews, 14 1-star reviews. Reminds me of Dirty Harry:

you've gotta ask yourself a question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya?

I bought that drive about a year ago. The Blu Ray head worked for about a day and a half, then died. Still works for DVD's, but not for the purposes I purchased it. Just bought a new LG drive to replace this with.

In an enclosure or a bare drive that you have to put in an enclosure?

Link?