Blu-ray/DVD burner -- does USB 3.0 make any sense?

Question

Level 1

11 points

Blu-ray/DVD burner -- does USB 3.0 make any sense?

My blu-ray/DVD burner has firewire and USB 2.0 connectivity, and while I'd always connected via firewire, that's not as practical with my late 2012 Mac Mini. (The mini's firewire port is being used by an audio interface, which has issues when other firewire devices are connected.) So that leaves me connecting the burner to one of the mini's four USB 3.0 ports. My question: would I be able to burn optical media faster and get better overall performance if I upgraded my burner (an LG 14X) to USB 3.0 -- it looks like there are at least a few USB 3.0 burners and enclosures out there. Or are read/write times with optical media such that USB 2.0 or 3.0 really doesn't matter? I'm using the burner to make DVDs and blu-rays in Final Cut Pro X and Toast.

Mac mini (Late 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Dec 8, 2012 5:28 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Creeper74

Level 2

366 points

Dec 8, 2012 9:28 AM in response to webalias rex

The speed of the bus isn't going to make a difference in this case. The bandwidth of USB 2.0 should be wide enough for the write buffer of BD.

Reply

Answer 2

Dec 8, 2012 12:28 PM in response to webalias rex

The actual drive mechanism is the limiting factor and not

USB.

What may be an issue with USB is the drive make or model.

I have found with BDs, with my LG Super Multi Blue Rewriter,

many movie apps have issues playing back a BD. It turns

out for this drive the playback is to slow, at least via the

frameworks that these apps are using. They are even marginal

with an LG (don't recal the model) installed in a USB2, Firewire 800/400,

SATA enclosure. Via Firewire this device plays back BDs with no issue.

Also, connected via USB and using Windows 7 via Bootcamp, there is no

issue. Even stranger, is if I connect with a Windows 7 virtual machine

in Parallels, data speed is just fine (video is crappy though because of

virtual graphics).

It seems as if OSX limits some BDs via USB to DVD speeds.

Reply