New Person Looking For A Blu Ray Optical Drive

[IWantToArchive]

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.

[MartyMcNuts]

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.

[DennisOlof]

@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.

[IWantToArchive]

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

[uzless]

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.

I feel your pain. There are plenty of models listed on the forum but unfortunately those listings are not updated and most of the links (especially for external players) are not in stock or sold out. A list isn't very helpful if it isn't updated but it's a free service so it's hard to complain. For us newbies it's hard to get into the game when most the pieces aren't available.

It would be helpful if there was a thread devoted to models that ARE in stock but it's hard to ask someone to do that for free. That would take a lot of time. Good luck.

[Billycar11]

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.

I feel your pain. There are plenty of models listed on the forum but unfortunately those listings are not updated and most of the links (especially for external players) are not in stock or sold out. A list isn't very helpful if it isn't updated but it's a free service so it's hard to complain. For us newbies it's hard to get into the game when most the pieces aren't available.

It would be helpful if there was a thread devoted to models that ARE in stock but it's hard to ask someone to do that for free. That would take a lot of time. Good luck.

Oh it's updated but the problem is they are no longer being made it's that simple