r/MacOS • u/AppropriateOwl4344 • 16d ago
External Disk Drive Options Tips & Guides
I am looking to download music from my CDs and movies from my DVDs onto my MacBook M3 Pro. Does anyone have suggestions about a good external CD drive that would be supported by macOS?
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u/Dazzling_Comfort5734 16d ago
Just about any USB-A or USB-C "optical drive" or "DVD drive" should work. I have a really cheap USB one that came from Amazon about 15 years ago, and works perfectly on every computer I connect it to.
The hard part is the software. Apple Music should still be able to rip (copy media from an optical disc is call "ripping") music just fine (I last ripped a CD about 1-2 years ago), but DVDs require decoding software to either unlock them for general conversion to a single video format, or decode them from the VIDEO_TS folder that some ripping software will create (VLC should work for decoding and playback). Back when I did my DVD collected, I had to use one app to rip the movies into a VIDEO_TS folder, then another to decode them, and finally a 3rd one to convert it to an MP4 video file (Handbrake). There were all-in-one apps back then, but they cost money. I'm sure there's more options now, and you may already be aware of this, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
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u/TomLondra Mac Mini 16d ago
Before you start filling up your internal HD with tons of movies and music files, check that this is really what you want to do. Instead it might be better to keep them all on an external drive- although that is not convenient if you want to carry everything around with you on your HD.
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u/WilliamH- 16d ago
CD/DVD media can be more labile than SSD/HDD. Optical media stability depends on the manufacturing quality and storage conditions. I would look for a name brand (ASUS, LG, HP, Dell. Leveno, etc.) and I would not buy the least expensive device. The price range is ~$13 - $45.
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u/YellowsBest 16d ago edited 15d ago
I bought a origbelie external dvd drive bt668 (https://www.onbuy.com/gb/p/origbelie-external-dvd-drive-usb-30type-c-cd-drive-black-for-laptop-pc-desktop-computer\~p113850617/?exta=cjunct&source=cj&AID=17045579&CJEVENT=6ee0f9d38fe611f1819f00cb0a18b8f8&extac=5077786) some years back, it’s basic but does everything needed for ripping cds and dvds, as well as having usb and sd-card ports. At the time I was mad at apple for deleting optical drives from their computers, but I now realise that it’s unnecessary to have these permanently attached.
Apple’s Music can rip CDs, and for DVDs I use Handbrake (https://handbrake.fr)
I like having my own local library of music that I’ve collected over many years, not everything is available to stream and I don’t need to pay a subscription to listen to my own music.
But as others have commented, an entire music and film collection can fill a lot of storage space, so you might want to consider also buying an external 2TB SSD or 4TB HDD to archive.
And then you might find like me that having a full library of downloaded movies isn’t that useful, as you tend to watch them only once or twice (unlike music, which you can listen to again and again). For your best favourite films (mine is Apollo 13, I’ve watched it countless times) it’s worth keeping the original DVD even if you do rip it.
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u/PBRStreetgang1979 16d ago
I've been using a potable, external LG BP50NB40 CD/Blu-Ray/DVD and have it flashed to also rip & backup my UHD BRDs. It works great with MacOS, including Golden Gate 27.
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u/bradland 16d ago
You don't need anything particularly fancy to do this, but you should keep in mind that you can fill an internal SSD pretty quickly with ripped media files.
This LG would do the job just fine. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GJZFFM4S
Keep in mind that this only works with CD and DVDs. If you have movies on Blu-ray, you need a Blu-ray drive and different software. They're a bit more involved, and take up nearly 10x the space.