Can anyone recommend and external DVD for my new PC? Just built a new PC and of course there are no drive bays in my case so I am going to use an external dvd.
Primarily will use it to burn music and play older dvds I still have.
Something like this would be good if you have an internal optical drive laying around.
https://www.amazon.com/Vantec-NST-536S3-BK-NexStar-External-Enclosure/dp/B01MRUN0HQ/
It’s not the cheapest thing out there, but I built an external Blu-ray + DVD + CD drive late last year for the purpose of ripping music CDs (for personal use, of course). I selected the drive for its high reliability and accuracy when ripping, and the enclosure for being high quality and supporting the full set of optical drive instructions (some don’t).
I used the ASUS BW-16D1HT internal optical drive along with the OWC Mercury Pro enclosure. Just open up the enclosure, pop in the drive, and boom you’re done. After ripping a few CDs I can verify that it works well.
That said, it seems like your needs aren’t as demanding, only needing to read DVDs. As such, you’d probably be fine with one of the many cheap slim USB DVD drives, such as:
…among many other similar options, all of which hover around ~$30. I haven’t used any of them personally, though.
I ripped my old blu-ray writer out of my old PC and put it in an external 5.25" USB enclosure
I have four external optical drives hooked up to my machine. Not because I specifically need four, but because I found two useful, was getting fed up with my existing solution, and don’t like having hardware just laying around not in use.
Originally I had a pair of dedicated external drives. A Pioneer BDR-XD05 and an LG BT20N in an external enclosure. These are both BD-RW drives, so superfluous, but such devices work. Problem is they were, and still are, both a little fussy and some just wouldn’t read certain discs - BluRay or DVD - where the other would. Plus they are quite noisy at full speed, which isn’t unexpected given there’s just no room in them for dampening.
So I got a pair of internal drives - an LG BG16NS55 and a Pioneer BDR-209D. I couldn’t fit them internally, which I knew in advance, but I also knew of an interface called eSATA. This is pretty much exactly what you’d expect, in that it’s designed to be an external SATA connection. All you do is feed an existing internal SATA data connector into an appropriate adaptor, then run the external cable to the drive/s. Depending upon the adaptor these new ports can even be used as USB ports if you don’t have a drive plugged in. Running power would have to be done separately but I’ve already hooked up both 5v and 12v jacks on the outside of my case (this is honestly really useful and I’ve done the same to my last 3 systems).
But in looking for eSATA adaptors, I found a more useful variant: Power eSATA. Again these are exactly what they state on the tin, only now you hook the adaptor up to your PSU as well as the SATA ports. Once again the ports on the can be used as USB ports if required and properly connected, but now they add a 12v line and can be used to power and signal external drives from one cable.
A quick 3D printed bracket later (just to keep them together and spaced slightly) and I now have two internal optical drives mounted externally via Power eSATA. It’s not the prettiest of setups since they’re bare metal on the back, but they work, are quieter than the USB drives, and far less picky on discs. The two USB drives are still plugged in because why not.
In short? Just mount an internal drive externally. You can use longer cables and/or extensions to just run SATA and power out to them, or you can look into (Power) eSATA for something a little more dedicated. And it means no faffing about with USB translators or external power bricks.