LG BP50NB40 (NB40) vs (NB50) Internal Hardware & Firmware

[ShatteredGlass]

I currently have two LG BP50NB40-NB40 drives that I purchased back in 2015 which both have FW v1.00 on them. I recently purchased two more BP50NB40 drives but they are the newer NB50 revision and come with FW 1.03. I successfully replaced the FW on the NB50 drives with MK FW using SDFtool, and the drives are now showing up as "Patched" in MakeMKV. So it seems that now both my NB40 and NB50 revisions should perform the same as far as firmware goes, however, what I'm wondering is if there are any hardware differences between the two units that make one better than the other. I can see that the drive internals are a little different on the older NB40 version than the newer NB50 version so I'm wondering if anyone knows if one is physically better than the other? I'm curious to know because if the newer NB50 revision is better, I would just consider selling my older NB40 units and buying two more NB50's. Seeing as how the newer units can be "Patched", I'm assuming that really only leaves the internal hardware as the deciding factor.

Also, on the NB50 models, is it better to run one of the older FW versions from the "Old" folder, or should I just stick with v1.03? I know newer isn't always better for pretty much everything these days, especially for people who "mod" things, so just wondering if there is any benefit to running older FW on these NB50 drives.

Thanks in advance.

[Woodstock]

Drives purchased in 2015 are unlikely to work for UHD, unless you got it right from the factory at the end of the year, and it has an "NS50" service code on the label.

Do NOT try to flash them with UHD firmware, as you will make them unusable.

[ShatteredGlass]

Thanks for the info. Sounds like I'd be better of just selling my older NB40 drives and buying two more NB50's. That brings me back to the second part of my question, which FW is the best to use with the BP50NB40-NB50? 1.01, 1.02, or 1.03? I see there is a HBD FW to allow reading UHD discs, which I'm currently don't need, so for reading standard Blu-ray discs, which FW is best to use?

[MartyMcNuts]

Thanks for the info. Sounds like I'd be better of just selling my older NB40 drives and buying two more NB50's. That brings me back to the second part of my question, which FW is the best to use with the BP50NB40-NB50? 1.01, 1.02, or 1.03? I see there is a HBD FW to allow reading UHD discs, which I'm currently don't need, so for reading standard Blu-ray discs, which FW is best to use?

For standard BD, just leave it on whatever firmware it comes with (unless you want to enable LibreDrive, 1.01-MK works ok). For UHD, cross-flash to BP60NB10 1.00-MK.

[ShatteredGlass]

So are you suggesting that 1.01-MK is better to run than 1.03-MK? Right now I'm using 1.03-MK and everything seems to be working fine. But if you're suggesting that 1.01-MK is superior then obviously I would go ahead and flash that instead.

[MartyMcNuts]

So are you suggesting that 1.01-MK is better to run than 1.03-MK? Right now I'm using 1.03-MK and everything seems to be working fine. But if you're suggesting that 1.01-MK is superior then obviously I would go ahead and flash that instead.

If it's working for you and you are happy with it then leave it be. No need to change it unless you want to or have issues.