HLDS BU40N Ultra Slim 9.5mm UHD 4K Blu-ray SATA 3.0 GB/s Optical Drive for PC

If you've been trying to back up your UHD/4K discs, you have probably already found out that the BR drives you have previously used to back up your HD BluRay discs fail at least half the time. When I first got into UHD/4K, I tried using my trusty LG Electronics WH16NS40 drives to rip them. I'd ripped literally hundreds of BluRay discs with them without issue. Apparently, UHD discs are a whole different beast. I thought my old drives were failing. Reasonable assumption as I'd literally ripped hundreds of discs. So I bought a new pair of LG Electronics WH16NS40 drives and flashed them appropriately. Check out the makemkv forums, if you haven't already. Nope, same issue. I'd read that the BU40N is the gold standard for ripping discs. At twice the price of a normal BR drive, plus the cost of the drive bay adapter to house the drive in a standard PC case, it's quite an investment. By the way, you want the Icy Dock adapter, here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0756MZTPG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1 After flashing the firmware appropriately, I can rip 4K discs with about a 95% success rate. Out of about 20 discs I've ripped so far I've only had one failure, which may or may not be due to the disc itself being damaged. So far I'm very happy with this purchase. Working great. Buy once, cry once.

Out of the box it just worked. I purchased an external drive enclosure to put this in. I installed it in the enclosure, plugged it into a USB slot and in moments it was up and running. The viewing software I had on my PC recognized the BR disk and there was no issues. After verifying all worked well I flashed the firmware to be able to rip my own disks to my Plex system to watch in the house on various HDTV's. This is one of the models recommended on the makemkv forums. The seller shipped it in a sturdy box. Since this is actually an internal drive it comes with mounting screws and a replacement face front if needed. If flashing the drive, all I will say is read the instructions well on the forums as they can be confusing. I would absolutely by this again from this seller.

Got this for my monster ThinkPad T440P specifically so I could watch BluRays on-the-go. Sounds like a weird, not-often scenario, but having the additional ability to use BluRay disks on something other than my desktop or PS4 is great. The drive is libredrive compatible, so it can be flashed to unlock the R/W speeds and other features for use with MakeMKV. I was able to confirm the drive works under Windows 10, Linux Mint and MacOS Ventura. VLC is able to open and play BluRays as well with the right settings! I will say the ONLY thing that I dislike about the drive is that it feels a bit flimsy compared to the stock CD/DVD drive from the T440P. Not a huge deal, just something you notice when opening and closing the tray.

Every picture of the ODD on the product page shows a firmware version of 1.01, so when the package arrived, I was frustrated because the firmware version noted on the ODD was 1.02. There were also no screws or power adapter. Box was empty other than the ODD and an advertisement. This is why I'm giving this 4 stars and not 5, even though I was able to replace the firmware and was able to get a power adapter ordered and here the next day. If you are considering buying this ODD, you probably know why I want to replace the firmware. Just in case you don't, 1.02 is an encrypted firmware and disallows reading/ripping of UHD discs. What the flip! Anyway, to verify 1.02 wouldn't work, I popped in Skyfall 4k and all it did was throw read errors. Caveat emptor! This worked for me, but it may not for you! Anytime you apply firmware updates to a device there is risk. Proceed with that knowledge! Following these steps on the MakeMKV forum got me up and going: 1. Install MakeMKV to get the command line tool. 2. Download the zip file containing all of the firmware versions available and unzip it somewhere. 3. Run the SDFtool Flasher 4. Select this ODD from the list 5. FIRST UPGRADE FIRMWARE TO 1.03!! 6. Browse to the "DE_LG_BU40N_1.03_MK.bin" firmware file. 7. Click Start and wait for it to finish 8. THEN DOWNGRADE FIRMWARE TO 1.00!! MakeMKV may not need it at 1.00, but the tools I use identify 1.03 as 'non-functional'. 9. Browse to the "DE_LG_BU40N_1.00.bin" firmware file. 10. Click Start and wait for it to finish 11. Enjoy I bought this to use side-by-side with an existing ASUS BW-16D1HT ODD that rips 99% of the UHDs I have, but fails to even recognize several - mostly triple layer 100Gb discs.

Other than that, mounted right into the New Inspiron 3030 Tower with no difficulty whatsoever. Picked up and identified CD, DVD, BD-RE, and UHD discs with no issue though it does take some time to get UHD movies rolling but they work. As previously stated, not to use long "small" screws. It interferes with the drawer's opening and closing

If your goal is to use PowerDVD to play UHD movies and you have jumped through all the hoops to make sure your computer supports UHD playback this is for you. Any other use involving UHD movies… Run.. Run fast! I tried twice to get a drive with the promised 1.01 firmware which will work with MakeMKV and both times got drives with 1.02 encrypted firmware. Good luck flashing to a UHD friendly firmware, that encrypted 1.02 firmware is gonna make that really fun. With the 1.02 firmware MakeMKV just errors out while trying to open the disc. Looks like the only way to get a UHD friendly slim drive without messing with flashing firmware is to buy one of these off eBay that somebody else has flashed with UHD friendly firmware or see if you can find an older used BU40N that hopefully the previous owner didn’t update the firmware on…. Good rule with optical drives is to never update unless your have problems that update fixes, often those updates are not “fixes” or improvements. They are further locking down the drive to stop piracy or at least make it difficult. This makes exercising your right to make a backup copy for personal use hard or impossible. In my case I am digitizing my movies and placing them on my personal PLEX server. Making the digital copy is perfectly legal for personal use…. The legal grey area is defeating and removing the DRM(digital rights management) from the movie which is necessary to make a copy. DRM is funny because it only has the movie studio’s rights in mind and tramples yours. It’s a grey area because copyright law doesn’t expressly forbid it but it doesn’t expressly allow it either. I’d argue I’m just applying my own DRM to protect my rights to freely use my purchase for personal use on my terms. It’s the criminals that copy and sell movies that ruin it for the rest of us and i fully support the movie industry doing what they need to do to stop that. particularly with copyright law it’s impossible for these studios to enforce their rights without making it very hard for us to exercise ours.

If you are shopping for the elusive "UHD Friendly" drive that fits in a "slim" case or laptop, then look elsewhere. This is NOT the original LG BU40N listed on many support sites as being able to read UHD Blu-Ray discs with the correct firmware. It seems the pre-ULTRA branded version of the LG Bu40N have long sold out and are very difficult to find. Regardless of firmware, you will get a Bus Encryption error when trying to open your UHD Blu-Ray's on this drive with anything but the official (and very limited) computer hardware requirements. In updating this device to use the ULTRA logo, the Mfg added something beyond the simple Firmware blocks to keep 3rd party software from playing your UHD Blu-Ray movies. Last I checked the "official" UHD Movie requirements are limited to--> Intel Kaby Lake CPU (or later) with Intel Graphics + PowerDVD 18 or higher + A new 4k TV with the required HDCP standard. If you want to play your UHD discs on an AMD based system, or just watch your 4k UHD movies on an existing TV, the "UHD Friendly" drive + 3rd party software such as MakeMKV or AnyDVD HD are your only options. The only "UHD Friendly" Blu-Ray drives widely in stock now are 5.25" desktop drives, WITH the appropriate pre-blocking firmware. If you are building an HTPC computer and want UHD, the best budget combo at the time of this writing is the AMD 3400G processor, and the LG WH16NS40 drive with Firmware 1.02. I have tested this combo watching a couple UHD movies on a an older 1080p TV and it worked perfectly. The choice of motherboard and case are your preference, although my test rig used an ASROCK B450 Mini-ITX motherboard with G.Skill Aegis DDR-3000 Memory. Fast memory is important as it's speed also affects the integrated graphic's performance.

I ordered this because new pc's do not come with blue ray drives and external drives have impossible software systems. Since this is SATA and it fits nice it works with the largest pain in the ass ever, Windows 11. Installed ina Dell 3020.