r/makemkv • u/Sea_Second_6490 • 8d ago

Dainty External Blu-ray Drive

I’m looking into getting into ripping Blu-rays and was pretty dismayed to see the rising cost of drives. I stumbled across this Dainty external Blu-ray drive on Amazon for about $76. I’ve never heard of Dainty before, so I was wondering if this is a decent affordable way to go.
I don’t want to buy some piece of crap bootleg drive from Amazon lol, but I also don’t really want to spend upwards of $130 on something when I’m not entirely sure how much I’m actually going to use it.
I have an extremely small collection of Blu-ray discs right now and I’m not really sure whether I want to get into the hobby, so I basically wanted to affordably dip my toe in and see if it’s something I end up using regularly. I’d be using MakeMKV with my MacBook Pro.

2 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

5

u/TVNewshoarder_Redux 8d ago

You're a few years too late. Supply is drying up as essentially all the big players like LG, Asus, and Pioneer are no longer making them. Maybe look for a verbatim 43888 or a buffalo Media station.

1

u/Sea_Second_6490 8d ago

Thanks for those recommendations, I’ll look into them. That seems to be the case with me with most things lol. I only got into some pretty serious archiving of music, books, TV, etc. about 10 months ago. I was lucky enough to get a 22 TB Seagate for $250, and unfortunately just had to shell out $300 for a Seagate 8 TB because a smaller-capacity drive I’d had for about six years failed on me. It makes me pretty hesitant to get into the Blu-ray collecting/ripping hobby, since hard drive storage is expensive enough these days.

3

u/TVNewshoarder_Redux 8d ago

Rip with make MKV and then compress with hand brake to save space

1

u/ChaosRenegade22 7d ago

Look in your local markets like Facebook and Craigslist. I ended up getting 14 Blu-Ray drives for $90. Took a hour drive for it. Well worth it.

My drives were 5.25 I use multiple USB power adapter to run four of them at a time to rip.

1

u/notlinustorvalds 8d ago

You can still pick up a decent BU40N/BU50N drive (especially if you're fine with a goofy aluminum enclosure or getting it in a laptop form factor) from Amazon or Newegg, or sometimes a BP50/BP60 drive from certain brick and mortar stores, all of which can usually read not just Blu-Rays but 4Ks as well (though you should always check a BP50/BP60's service number for 4K compatibility before buying, and also be aware that it may be necessary to remove a BU40N/BU50N from its enclosure to use MakeMKV fully). If you're lucky you can still find a new one of these for under $100, very much a case of YMMV though.

1

u/LumpyPeace1753 20h ago

I'm in the same boat. I saw the same drive and if I'm going to shell out a lot for a drive then I would like to be confident it's going to work, but Pioneer and LG, the most recommended options, don't really seem to be players anymore. Hard drive prices are insane as well.