Best USB Blu-ray Drives in 2020

Pioneer's external Blu-ray burner is one of the slimmest options on the market, featuring a clamshell design and six-times write speed for single-layer and dual-layer BD-R. It has plug-and-play functionality and support for the latest macOS and Windows 10 software. You simply plug it into your computer via USB — Pioneer drive supports USB 3.0 — and you should be good to go. As a bonus, you get some free software from Cyberlink to help get the best from it.

This award-winning, stylish entry from ASUS is an excellent option if portability isn't such a significant factor for you. It comes with a vertical stand that will save precious desk space in your office. Still, beyond aesthetics, this drive is capable of writing at six-times speeds for standard BD-R discs. It supports BDXL, meaning you'll be able to backup up to 100GB of data onto a single Blu-ray while boasting ATP technology and disk encryption capabilities.

This Buffalo Blu-ray disc writer is the fastest here, capable of writing at 16x speeds if you're handling DVDs, but also a respectable 6x when you're reading and writing Blu-ray discs. It's TAA compliant, handles video upscaling as and when required, hooks up with USB 3.0, and comes with a pretty solid two-year warranty behind it for peace of mind.

This small and pretty stylish looking Blu-ray drive uses USB-C 3.0 for best performance but is backward compatible to USB 2.0 if that's all you have. Speeds of 6x are on par with the best out there, and it's nice and quiet in operation. There are no drivers required, it's just plug and play, it'll work with any major piece of software, and it's perfect for tossing in your laptop bag and taking on the road.

With speeds up to 16x and support for triple-layer discs as well as BDXL and M-DISC, this external drive can handle just about everything you'd want to throw at it. It utilizes USB 3.1 to hook up your PC, too, for the best overall performance, and the drive slot is whisper quiet. And despite all this, it's still powered by just the USB bus.

If you have a spare, unused Blu-ray drive in a desktop PC that you wish was external, this clever enclosure is a neat way to get precisely what you want. It requires its own power, but otherwise, you simply slot in an internal drive, connect up over USB, and away you go. Waste not, want not!