PioneerExternal Blu-ray Drive BDR-XS07S Silver Color to Match Your Computer.6X Slot Loading Portable USB 3.2 Gen1(3.0) (No Application Software Included) No UHD and UHD disc Supported

I use it for high rez recording so far, and except for being very slow recording, the quality of the recording is perfect as of now. No real problems other than price of disks, $12 per. But you can't test for 'time' very easily, and that's the TRUE test for this machine. The quality of performance is great, and the longevity evaluation is the real purpose for these recordings--I just haven't had it long enough as yet, and you can't easily measure that other than that. So far, it passes with no problems other than recording speed. If it does what it's intended to do, I won't complain about that.

I think the most important thing to know about this item is that it can not run if connected to a USB hub. It does mention this in the description of the drive, but it's very important. If you're like me, I have an M1 Mac Mini that already has every port filled up, you can't run the drive with a connecting hub. Thankfully another review mentioned which power cord type to use, and I bought this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09W8X9VGK since the connector has an interchangeable end. With that connected, the drive has no issues running.Of course the other thing for Mac users to know is that you need to download special software to run blu-ray movies which was the primary use case for me (someone else said that VLC Player came with their computer, but mine didn't, and that software doesn't work without some serious tech knowledge and a prayer anyway).I don't have any intention of copying or writing to blu-ray discs, so I can't speak to that.Overcoming those challenges for a Mac user, the drive works perfectly!

Only been about a month and on my second unit but this seems sturdy well built and fairly quiet. The first one got extremely loud after a few days of use. The exchange was seamless. The look is also very nice.

There is no activity indicator on the drive, which causes me some confusion from time to time. The power supply cable is not needed IF you have USB3.0+ hardware support on your computer. Most computers have USB2.0 and maybe a single USB3.0 port, so not every USB port will power this drive directly. The seller doesn't have (that I can find) the power supply cable listed separately, fortunately it's a common enough cable (5vdc 1a) that you can find it pretty easily... but you do have to look for it.As for performance and functionality, it seems to otherwise work as advertised. I have only used it with Windows operating systems, I highly suspect there is not a driver for Linux. The special retry feature automatically kicks in when it detects dirt/finger prints and that feature is very cool, it does slow you down some... but it's not a complete stop.I don't have a personal preference on tray loading vs slot loading (which this is), but I know some who do. I would recommend this drive and would buy again if I needed another.

Pioneer is usually considered a top brand for me. Having pioneered the CDJ (no pun intended) and being in the home hi fi business for decades, I had high hopes for this blu ray drive. Connecting it to my Mac mini (M1) via a USB hub allowed me to play CD’s, but I couldn’t rip them. Connecting it directly to my Mac, it allowed me to rip CDs for awhile , but then stopped working within 30 days of purchase. It almost ate one of my CD’s, even. Maybe getting an external power for this would have helped, but what a pain.Lastly, while I can’t really fault the player for this, playing blu rays on my Mac was extremely complicated and unintuitive.Needless to say I returned this and bought an ASUS one less than a quarter of the price. While the Asus drive can’t play blu rays, at least it actually works consistently for CDs and dvds.

The media could not be loaded. Very good for playing DVD's but not sure about Blu Rays since those are ANNOYINGLY region locked. But to get around that just RIP them into digital format and you're good to go. VLC Media Player has a tool that lets you switch between Region A, B and C but that's ONLY for DVD's. Yes I know you can change the region on the device but it says you can only do that like five times or something. Just get around that by just ripping it into digital format and you'll be able to watch anything, anywhere. It does take a while to RIP though. I'm ripping about 13-15 episodes of Samurai Jack on Blu Ray with MakeMKV and it's about 2 hours and 40ish minutes.

I've gone through quite a few external blu ray drives - the kind that have a sliding disc platter JUST DON'T WORK. The mechanism will vibrate the entire unit to the point of disc reading errors.This particular player is solid - it's heavy enough to prevent the spinning disc from vibrating the entire unit. Even my more "difficult" blu ray discs are recognized the first time they are inserted. Hope it holds up, as it's the first drive that hasn't been unusable from the start.

I didn't want to pay this much for a Blu-Ray burner, so I bought one that was cheaper but had good reviews. After receiving the other drive, I tried burning some CD's and DVD disc to see how well it worked before I tried burning the very expensive 100GB M-disc. I tried 3 DVD's and 4 CD's and all of them burned to 30 something percent then reported failed to burn. I returned that drive for a refund and decided to go ahead and buy a more expensive pioneer drive because if a drive can't burn CD's, it is worthless regardless of what it cost. I received the pioneer drive and burned one DL DVD disc to try it out and it burned perfect so then I moved to burning my wife's photos over the last 55 Years on 100GB M-disc and they burned without a flaw. So, after wasting a lot of time and 7 bad burned disc I finally bought this highly recommended pioneer Drive and burned my disc successfully.