External BR drive only works in the USB 2.0 mode

Question

Level 1

8 points

External BR drive only works in the USB 2.0 mode

Hi All,

I have an LG Blu-ray external drive (BE14NU40 model, http://www.lg.com/us/data-storage/lg-BE14NU40 ). The drive has it own power adapter and works only when plugged in to the wall socket. When I hook it up to my late 2013 Macbook Pro Retina 15", the system only displays the drive for a short time - when the disc inside starts spinning, the system loses the external drive almost immediately i.e. the drive disappears from the list of mounted devices and the operation I commenced, that made the disc start spinning (e.g. playback), is interrupted.

So from the outset it looks like a power problem, but hey - the BR drive is powered externally, not via USB, so how come the USB power supply might matter?

What's even more strange - when the BR drive is connected via a USB 2.0 cable, it works flawlessly. Only with a USB 3.0 cable it is effectively not usable. So the immediate suspect is the cable, but again: I tried two different USB 3.0 cables, having assumed the stock cable that came with the BR drive is of poor quality and cannot handle it, but a premium aftermarket USB 3.0 cable (a Belkin 1.8m premium http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-F3U158-08-SuperSpeed-USB-Cable/dp/B003LQTNIU ) also failed. So it does not necessarily look to me like a problem with the cable.

I have to "confess" I have a Windows installation on my MBP through Bootcamp and tried to use the BR drive in Windows environment to check whether it may be a problem with the drivers. It is not - the BR drive behaves the same way under Windows, as it does under OS X, so it's not a question of the drivers / OS.

This phenomenon occurs regardless of the type of disc I put into the BR drive - CD, DVD or BR.

The BR drive has the most up to date firmware.

So the question is: does anybody know a way to force my external BR drive to work in the USB 3.0 mode? What may be causing the problems?

Posted on Jun 20, 2014 8:00 AM

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Answer 1

Rudegar

Level 10

180,624 points

Jun 20, 2014 8:13 AM in response to PS_STI

an usb2 interface would be unlikely to be the bottleneck for an optical drive

so connecting it by usb3 or even thunderbolt or eSATA would not make it burn faster or read faster the mechanical parts is the bottleneck

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Answer 2

PS_STI Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 21, 2014 4:45 AM in response to Rudegar

Thanks, but are you sure? Any links / figures etc. to support this?

Per wikipedia: "If a USB 2.0 interface is used, the maximum drive speed is 288 Mbit/s or 36 MB/s (also called 8× speed).^[87] A USB 3.0 interface (with proper cabling) does not have this limitation".

The drive I own is 14x speed, so the way I read Wikipedia it would benefit from a properly working USB 3.0 interface. Especially that my MBP has an SSD drive, so data transfers should be really fast. I use the MBP and the BR mostly for ripping DVDs/BRs (only the ones I own on physical discs; no piracy involved here, no sharing the copies with my friends etc.) so for now it seems the USB 2.0 truly is a bottleneck...

Coming back to Wikipedia: they mention the cabling. Could I be the unlucky guy who has two crappy cables? I think I will write to LG support, asking for their opinion on this... Or an indication which cable they tested and is 100% guaranteed to be working with the BR drive (if they admit the stock one does not work).

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Answer 3

markl81

Level 1

15 points

Jun 26, 2016 7:32 AM in response to PS_STI

Just to backup what you said, I've been noticing the same thing. Your help post actually helped me to get the drive to work under USB 2.0. What is odd is that I had it working under USB 3.0 for a while. I ripped about 100 DVDs from my collection. But then it stopped working. I wonder if a recent OSX update has caused this problem.

I then hooked up the drive through a USB 2 hub on my iMac and it work. However, it is ripping at about 40% of the speed it was before.

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Answer 4

Whywutt

Level 2

177 points

Jun 20, 2014 8:52 AM in response to PS_STI

A long shot, but have you ruled out an actual problem with your MBP or the device itself by trying it in another Mac/PC? Might be worth a check.

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Answer 5

PS_STI Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 21, 2014 4:46 AM in response to Whywutt

Simple solutions are sometimes the best, but are the ones we keep on forgetting about 😊. I will find a PC with USB 3.0 and see whether it works.

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