Most of them are ranged from 20 to 30 US dollars on Amazon. Are they practically the same quality build and the only difference is the writing speed /reading speed etc?And there
is no critical difference?
btw, which brand do you recommend?
Most USB drives are comparable to internal drives, the only problem is that USB speed, is slower then an internal drive would be. So, if you are burning a CD or DVD it may have a buffer over run and the burn will fail, depending on what else is going on with the computer. Be sure to get a USB 3.0. drive to minimize this issue.
If you are just replacing a drive that is internal to a desktop, It would be cheaper and more reliable to get an Internal drive rather then USB. They are relatively easy to replace, and you can go to YouTube to show you how, if you don't know.
Hi there
@Tsw88
IMO if you have an external DVD writer (laptops these days don't usually have DVD drives any more) the best use is to rip physical DVD's / CD's to actual .ISO's.
Things like KODI will play ripped DVD iso's including the menus and you can also stream content to remote TV / player as well. Amazon fire TV devices can read and play isos stored on your machine easily enough -- I think VLC might - not sure though.
Use something like AnyDVD to rip the DVD to an iso. No region encoding either so discs can play anywhere.
For this purpose the quality of the external DVD writer is irrelevant. The 20 - 30 USD ones will work just fine -- though if you want to rip Blu Ray discs you will have to pay a bit more.
Why anybody would want to create physical DVD;s any more though -- I can't imagine or see any conceivable reason to.
Storage of ISOS on hard disc with region encoding stripped is so much better -- KODI / VLC to play remote / locally.
Cheers
jimbo
They are basically a laptop type Optical drive in a box. They should all have buffer underrun protection. USB 2 is faster than available DVD writers/drives, so you don't need USB 3 as such.
Any should be OK like LG, LiteOn, Samsung, Pioneer, ASUS etc.
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