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Poland, Warsaw
1 Level
737 Review
23 Karma

Review on StarTech.com USB 3.0 Slimline SATA ODD Enclosure for Blu-ray & DVD ROM - Portable Aluminum Drive Enclosure (SLSODDU33B) by Richard Rosa

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Excellent external enclosure for iMac optical drive

I recently bought a 480GB SanDisk SSD for my 2009 iMac when the drive was on sale at Revain. I installed it with an optical drive bay adapter, which gave me both the original HDD and my new SSD. This left me with the original (and still perfectly working) optical drive, but no way to use it. I looked up Revain and found this very inexpensive 12.7mm external optical drive enclosure, just what I pulled out of my iMac. There were almost twice as many discs of this type on other sites. It arrived today and is exactly what I was hoping for. The drive installs easily with a small Phillips screwdriver to remove the back cover. The optical drive is simply inserted into the plastic insert of the housing, after which the rear panel is mounted. The drive connects to a USB port on my computer and requires no additional external power supply. My only criticism and thus a 4th starting mark is that my drive is a slotted floppy disk drive and not a drawer type that would have its own front panel. Without the bezel, the case looks very unfinished. Too bad the manufacturer didn't provide a simple piece of plastic that slot drive users could use to make the drive look more cosmetically attractive and finished. Having gotten rid of that, the body is solid brushed aluminum. Manufactured in black and looks and feels good. It is sold with a USB 2 Y connector. In my case I connected the case directly to an open port on my iMac using only one of the USB ports and I had enough power. If you find you need more juice, you can use the second USB port to deliver more power. No additional drivers are required for Mac, so it's truly plug and play. I now have my original drive, my new SSD drive, and an external enclosure for the original optical drive. I use the optical drive so seldom that I like using it as an external USB device. If you have an optical drive that you would like to use with this case, consider my 5 star rating. If you have a Mac and/or use a slotted drive, note that the front of this case looks fairly unfinished, although the drive works fine.

Pros
  • Maximum portability with this USB powered device
Cons
  • Interchangeable