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Hi there, I am new here so bear with me. I live in Europe and I want to buy a Blu Ray optical disc drive to archive my Blu Ray copies. I don't know which drive to get as I am having difficulty trying to find one at a reasonable price or is in stock. I did see someone selling drives in Europe on this forum but I haven't heard back from him (If you are reading this, please let me know if you are still selling). Now I am asking you guys here, what optical disc drives can I get that I can flash or are already flashed that will work for ripping Blu Ray discs?

Any help is appreciated and I apologise if I am late with replies.

IWantToArchive wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 15, 2026 11:28 pm

Hi there, I am new here so bear with me. I live in Europe and I want to buy a Blu Ray optical disc drive to archive my Blu Ray copies. I don't know which drive to get as I am having difficulty trying to find one at a reasonable price or is in stock. I did see someone selling drives in Europe on this forum but I haven't heard back from him (If you are reading this, please let me know if you are still selling). Now I am asking you guys here, what optical disc drives can I get that I can flash or are already flashed that will work for ripping Blu Ray discs?

Any help is appreciated and I apologise if I am late with replies.

Please use the search function! There are many of these exact threads.

The best resource for you is the Ultimate UHD Drive Guide 2026. It contains a list of all popular models. Essentially all optical drives on the list are extremely hard to find now since both Pioneer and LG are no longer manufacturing them.

I assume you were talking about Asmcom who is based in Ireland. If you look at his thread, he is away until Feb 2026.

@MartyMcNuts I hope you can help me out.

I am also looking for a bluray burner. I have no interest in ripping UHD but I do want to make backups to DVDs (have some) and BluRay discs. Personal data like pictures, videos etc. At the moment I use mechanical hard drive as it is flexible and works OK but I want optical disc backup as additional storage just in case. The more backups you have, duplication etc the more safe it is.

From what I understand a 5.25 drive is better then a slim drive. Pioneer was the best brand in general, and then LG (Hitachi) and in last place is verbatim, asus etc. who did use pioneer, LG hardware. I do have an external 5.25 USB3 case but I can use a 5.25 driver in my older computer case. Anyway can you help me out with what brands I should get and what models are of interest to me. I am looking for best quality hardware and will only use quality brand discs for my optical backups. There is not guide here on the forums I can find about this. I do have the option to buy LG BP55EB40 Slim Drive (SVC EB52) from a place that still have two in stock.

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Will there be any difference in quality between a Pioneer drive or a LG drive if I only want to burn singel layer DVD-R and BD-R discs, it seems as verbatim optical media is easy to get hold of and decent quality. I do have a 25Gb 50 pcs BD-R spindle of verbatim I bought two years ago.

Is a 5.25 drive always the better option for quality burns over a slim drive ?

Is a pioneer 5.25 drive or even a pioneer slim driver the over all best option (if I can get hold of one) for quality burns over any other brand ?

What brands of LG 5.25 bluray burner or slim drives are good options?

I also need to buy a LG drive so I can use check the burns for quality, and read them back to check that the disc is OK for archiving. From what I understand it has to work with opti drive control. I don't know what models to get for this.

I hope others with knowledge will reply to this too, I need all the help I can get.

Thanks.

MartyMcNuts wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 16, 2026 1:44 am

IWantToArchive wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 15, 2026 11:28 pm

Hi there, I am new here so bear with me. I live in Europe and I want to buy a Blu Ray optical disc drive to archive my Blu Ray copies. I don't know which drive to get as I am having difficulty trying to find one at a reasonable price or is in stock. I did see someone selling drives in Europe on this forum but I haven't heard back from him (If you are reading this, please let me know if you are still selling). Now I am asking you guys here, what optical disc drives can I get that I can flash or are already flashed that will work for ripping Blu Ray discs?

Any help is appreciated and I apologise if I am late with replies.

Please use the search function! There are many of these exact threads.

The best resource for you is the Ultimate UHD Drive Guide 2026. It contains a list of all popular models. Essentially all optical drives on the list are extremely hard to find now since both Pioneer and LG are no longer manufacturing them.

I assume you were talking about Asmcom who is based in Ireland. If you look at his thread, he is away until Feb 2026.

I will try that, thanks