Plextor External Blu-ray PX-LB950UE

We've spent a lot of time lately with compact portable optical drives that give you the ability to take your Blu-ray and DVD capability on the road?even if you're using an ultrabook. But for the most part those drives can't compete with the larger models found on desktop PCs. The Plextor External Blu-ray PX-LB950UE ($229.99 list), on the other hand, can. Instead of sacrificing capability for a smaller package, it gives you a full-blown and full-featured optical drive, regardless of what type of system you attach it to.

Design
The PX-LB950UE is definitely a desktop drive, with its 2.03-by-6.42-by-8.85-inch (HWD) size and 2.65-pound weight making it far too large for day-to-day portability. For a Blu-ray reader and burner that's a little easier to carry around, consider the Pioneer BDR-XD04 ($149.99 direct, 4 stars). The PX-LB950UE is a tray-loading drive, with a front-ejecting tray. The glossy black plastic housing has no vents for airflow, but the drive is open enough to stay cool; it never climbed higher than 87 degrees Fahrenheit during our disc playback and burning tests. Keeping the drive planted to your desk are four rubber feet.

On the front of the drive is the disk tray, a blue LED power indicator light, an eject button, and a pinhole for manually ejecting the tray. On the back of the drive, you'll find an On/Off switch, a power connector, and ports for both USB 3.0 and eSATA. The drive also comes with an AC power adapter, a USB 3.0 (USB A to USB B) cable, and an eSATA cable.

Because the drive connects with either USB 3.0 or eSATA, it offers higher data transfer speeds than standard USB 2.0 and thus smoother playback and shorter burn times. The USB 3.0 cable has the blue-colored USB A connection to plug into your laptop, but the back end uses the rarer Standard-B connector?most USB 3.0 accessories use the smaller Micro-B connection to reduce bulk. The USB connection is backward-compatible with USB 2.0 ports, but at the cost of sometimes jittery playback and slower disc burning.

The eSATA cable is a necessity for anyone using a PC without USB 3.0, such as a budget desktop or a laptop more than about two years old, but who still wants to take advantage of the drive's speed. You may have trouble, however, because, unlike the USB 3.0 port, the eSATA port on the back of the drive doesn't stay connected; we found that it disconnects or unplugs entirely if any sideways pressure is exerted on it, a problem that is exacerbated by a very stiff cable.

Features
The PX-LB950UE comes bundled with two software discs. One contains PlexUtilities, Plextor's proprietary software suite, which includes drive information and diagnostic tools, and advanced tools that will likely go over the average user's head, like optical disc surface scanning, parity error scanning, professional laser tracking, and focusing diagnostics. Some of the more accessible include adjustments of drive speed to reduce noise levels, and secure erasure of data on rewritable media. On the second disc you'll find the CyberLink BD Suite, which offers tools for Blu-ray and DVD playback, disc authoring, video capture and editing. Beyond the movie magic, it also lets you burn data to disc, create system backup discs, and create custom labels on blank LightScribe discs.

Be ready to set aside a fair amount of time to install all this software: Installing from both discs took nearly an hour, but you can use the drive itself to install the software?something you often can't do with portable drives, like the Samsung Optical SmartHub SE-208BW ($129.99 street, 2 stars).

Performance
In terms of actual use, the PX-LB950UE performed wonderfully. The drive has read support for most Blu-ray disc formats, including BD-R, BD-R DL, DB-RE, and BD-RE dual-layer, as well as DVD and CD formats. Read speeds vary from 8X for Blu-ray, 16X for DVD, and 48X for CD?considerably faster than the speeds offered by portable drives, like the Samsung SE-506AB External Slim Blu-ray Re-Writer ($129.99 street, 4 stars). With the bundled software installed and the right display, you can also enjoy 3D Blu-ray, or convert 2D DVD movies to simulated 3D.

When writing to discs, the drive offers fairly broad format support, and at decent speeds, too. Supported Blu-ray formats include BD-R (12X), BD-R DL (8X), while DVD formats cover everything from DVD-RAM (12X) to dual-layer DVD-RW (6X) and CD formats zip through, whether they are CD-RW (24X) or CD-R (48X). As with read speeds, these burning speeds can't be touched by portable competitors. Vibration dampening ensures quieter operation and an 8MB buffer improves burn stability and data accuracy.

The Plextor External Blu-ray PX-LB950UE tops the performance of even our Editors' Choice portable drive, the Samsung SE-506AB External Slim Blu-ray Re-Writer, but we would expect nothing less when shifting from a compact portable drive to an external desktop unit. It has its faults, like a crummy eSATA connection and an overly complicated utilities package, but on the whole the Plextor External Blu-ray PX-LB950UE is a smart buy among external optical drives.

COMPARISON TABLE
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