1. The list in brief
2. Best overall
3. Best performance
4. Best for Apple
5. How to choose
6. Why trust Laptop Mag?
The best external DVD drives are the only way we'll survive the ephemeral licensing agreements we buy when we purchase something digital. Sadly, not all physical media is made available digitally, and there's plenty of personal footage and data out there that you might only be able to watch via DVD.
Our favorite example is 2010’s Transformers: War for Cybertron, an outstanding game practically scrubbed from existence on digital storefronts. You'll have to cough up an arm, a leg, and half an ear to get a legitimate game key from a gray market site or even a physical copy.
However, if you own the DVD, you can laugh in the face of Hasbro and Activision as you gleefully blast the optics off Decepticons all day long.
More importantly, you don't need the internet to use an external DVD drive. So, the lack of an internet connection will never stop me from watching Batman Begins (I watched this all the time as a kid with no streaming services).
You could also try to find a laptop with a CD-DVD drive, but they're exceedingly rare and, in most cases, far more expensive than the hardware justifies. You are far better off just picking up an external drive that connects to any laptop. Or, if you're into film, consider a Blu-ray drive like this LG BP60NB10.
If you’re looking to invest in an external DVD drive but don’t know where to start, you've come to the right place. We’ve scoured the market and compiled our shortlist of the best external DVD drives.
Rael Hornby brings decades of tech enthusiasm to the table with a broad history of technical support, web design, and journalism under his belt. As Laptop Mag's content editor and resident reviewer of accessories and peripherals, he's responsible for getting hands on with all sorts of additional hardware for laptops and PCs — ensuring they perform as claimed and that they deliver fantastic value for our readers.
Best external DVD drives in 2024: The list in brief
ASUS' ZenDrive U9M is a fantastic all-around option for all desktop platforms for accessing physical media on laptops without in-built DVD drives.
See more below
The OWC Mercury Pro is a DVD reading, data burning, speed-demon of the physical medium, offering impressive performance in a sleek and stylish chassis.
When Apple offers the USB SuperDrive as an accessory, your MacBook doesn't need a DVD drive. This speedy DVD drive offers spritely performance and works perfectly with macOS.
The best external DVD drives in 2024
Why you can trust Laptop Mag Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Best overall
The ASUS ZenDrive U9M is a solid choice for anybody looking to add an optical drive to their setup. Not only is its stylish, Zen garden-esque hairline finish striking, but the ZenDrive U9M also boasts decent performance with read and write speeds of up to 8x for DVDs and 24x for CDs.
Desktop compatibility is one of ZenDrive’s biggest strengths. The optical drive supports most major operating systems, such as macOS (10.6 and above), Windows (8 / 8.1 and above), and Linux.
The ZenDrive also comes with two cable options, allowing either a USB 2.0 Type-A or Type-C connection, depending on your available ports. It also completely supports the entire range of CD and DVD disc types for playback and writing and M-Disc support for unparalleled archiving of all your digital data.
The ASUS ZenDrive U9M is available for just $34.99, which is a fair price for what's on offer. Better still, the ZenDrive comes bundled with handy software like CyberLink’s Power2Go and PowerBackup.
Also included is Nero BackItUp and a 12-month subscription to the ASUS Webstorage Cloud Service. ASUS’s external DVD drive is a fantastic all-rounder that doesn’t just grant access to physical media but makes for an impressive tool for backing up and archiving your most important data.
Best performance
Unlike many entries in our list, the OWC Mercury Pro is much better suited to a dedicated space on your desk than a spot in your laptop bag.
This external DVD drive and its aluminum enclosure weigh more than some modern notebooks at a hefty 5.73 pounds, but you’ll also need to connect it to a power outlet once set up. However, what the OWC Mercury Pro loses in portability, it more than makes up for in performance.
While most external DVD drives will typically feature read and write speeds of up to 8x, the OWC Mercury Pro puts the pedal to the metal and delivers read speeds of up to 16x and blisteringly fast write speeds of up to 24x.
That translates to a data rate of around 33.2MB/s, allowing a complete write of a dual-layer DVD in just four minutes — just a third of the time it would take your average 8x drive.
If you’re more interested in casually watching a few movies here or there and playing some older PC titles, then it’s unlikely that you’ll take advantage of much of what the Mercury Pro has to offer.
However, if you’re serious about ripping and burning CDs or DVDs, then the OWC Mercury Pro is your choice. Performance like this won’t come cheap, though, with the drive holding a sizable price tag of $89.
Best for Apple
Apple’s USB SuperDrive may seem a little dated, especially as the company released it alongside the first MacBook Air in 2008. However, it remains the go-to device for many Mac users who aren’t quite as ready as Apple to turn their backs on physical media.
Since 2016, the Apple USB SuperDrive has been the only way for newer Mac owners to use optical media without relying on third-party hardware—and the fact that it’s still up to the task almost 15 years later is a testament to its quality.
While its DVD read and write speeds of up to 8x are still good enough to compete with much of the market's offering, the Apple USB SuperDrive shows its age in a few areas.
With no M-Disc support, the SuperDrive misses out on one of the optical media’s most impressive archiving options. Its legacy USB Type-A connection is practically a relic from a bygone era since Apple adopted USB-C ports as standard in 2018.
These issues aside, the USB SuperDrive is still a solid DVD drive. Apple’s reputation for making sleek, well-built devices is on full display. Weighing less than 0.74 pounds, the SuperDrive is a great accessory for your laptop bag.
Apple products tend to come with price tags, and the SuperDrive is no different. However, Apple’s fantastic build quality and eye-catching minimalist design somewhat offset the premium asking price.
How to choose an external DVD drive
Drive speed
The speed of the drive you pick determines how fast you’ll be able to read and write data within the drive. Speeds range from 1x (slowest) to 24x (quickest), with 1x speeds equating to a data rate of 1.385 MB/s. At this speed, it will take roughly an hour to write a single-layer DVD to capacity and 103 minutes for dual-layer DVDs.
Higher drive speeds indicate how much faster your drive will perform. This means if a drive states its speed as x20, it is twenty times as fast as the base x1 speed (1.385 MB/s * 20 = 27.7 MB/s). The most common read/write speed for an external DVD drive is x8, which results in a data rate of around 11.08 MB/s. The time it takes to write a single-layer DVD to capacity at this rate is just seven minutes, with a dual-layer DVD taking only thirteen minutes.
Connectivity
An important factor to consider when selecting an external DVD drive is the type of connection it uses. As laptops continue to follow the thin-and-light trend, legacy ports like USB Type-A are being phased out in favor of the smaller and faster USB Type-C port.
However, most external DVD drives continue to use Type-A connections because the data rate of even the fastest DVD drives (24x) is only 33.2 MB/s or 266 Mbps, which is well within the 60 MB/s or 480 Mbps bandwidth of a typical USB 2.0 Type-A connection.
While some modern external DVD drives do offer Type-C connections, most remain unchanged. If there are no legacy ports available, you may need a USB-A to USB-C adapter to connect the drive to your chosen device (especially a tablet or smartphone).
Compatibility
Commonly, most external DVD drives will work well with Windows and macOS right out of the box (as long as the Mac in question is a post-2008 model with no internal drive originally fitted). However, other operating systems like Linux, Android and Fire OS aren’t offered the same level of support.
If you are wanting to combine an external DVD player with a Linux or Android based device, make sure the manufacturer lists it as a compatible operating system before you make a purchase.
M-Disc support
Regular recordable DVDs are great for storing data as you move it from one device to the next, but if you want to store information long-term, you should use M-Disc DVDs.
All regular recordable DVDs have their data burnt into an organic dye layer that begins to degrade from the moment it is written to. This gives most standard recordable DVDs a limited lifespan that some estimate to be between two and five years. While it’s not too much hassle to make a new copy of your data within that window, the process can be time-consuming and tedious.
Enter the M-Disc DVD, a write-once optical disc that doesn’t use organic dyes to store data but instead uses a more powerful laser found in M-Disc compatible DVD drives to engrave data onto its glassy carbon surface.
Unlike the short lifespan of regular recordable DVDs, the material used in M-Disc DVDs offers a theoretical lifespan of 1,000 years. This makes drives with M-Disc support fantastic options for those seeking to create long-term backups of sensitive information or sentimental media without worrying about their data becoming lost or corrupted.
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