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Nowadays, optical drives are literally being phased out from almost all the laptops. Also, it is very rare to see a 5.25” bay on modern-day PC cases for fitting an internal optical drive that includes a DVD drive, DVD writer or a Blu-ray drive. Although optical drives are a thing of the recent past, they can come very useful in some situations and are of great importance for some people. For example, they are used for backing up data on optical discs, creating bootable CD/DVD, watching DVDs, listening to audio CDs or DVDs, making recovery disks, installing older games that came on DVDs / CDs, transferring files from your older DVDs /CDs, installing drivers for a component that usually come on DVDs, installing software that only come on CDs or DVDs, playing kids educational or recreational CDs / DVDs, making MP3s and video discs for your audio/video player and so on.

If your laptop does not come with a DVD drive or your PC does not have the 5.25-inch bay to accommodate an internal DVD drive then the best solution to this problem is to get an external optical drive that supports both CD / DVD reading and writing. There are a plethora of DVD drives available from branded and non-branded manufacturers but you should be careful about choosing an external optical drive as some of them have very poor build quality, while some of them may lack the support for the media that you want to use. Also, the optical drive should be reliable and should last at least a year without giving any major read and write errors. There are some important factors that you should consider when buying an external optical drive, which are being mentioned below.

What to Look for in an External DVD Drive

Media support – You need to be aware of the optical media that the drive supports. The common optical media types include CD-R, CD+R, CD-RW, CD+RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and any drive that you buy should support them. Moreover, some drives do support M-Disc optical media burning for DVD, which is a more durable and reliable media than a regular writable DVD. M-Disc DVD media and has claimed lifespan of over 1000 years, which makes it great for archiving and backup.

Read/Write Speed – The external DVD drive you are getting should be able to read and write at respectable speeds, which is 24X for CD and 8X for DVD media.

Power / Interface – External DVD drives connect to the computer using a USB port. They do not require external power and draws power from the USB port itself. However, some of them may require two USB ports for power while some require only one. Drives with USB 3.0 interface require only one port but USB 2.0 drives may require more than two ports and this can be a major concerning issue for laptop users because laptops only have few USB ports on them.

Build Quality / Construction – Most of the external optical drives are pretty slim and are portable. Some of them are flimsy and are made of very cheap plastic, which poses a constant risk of them breaking down during handling or even during normal use. So, build quality should matter too when choosing an external optical drive.

OS Support – An external optical drive should be compatible with popular operating systems that include Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Important Note: Do not use USB Hubs with the external optical drives as the external drive may not be recognized and will not function because of improper power delivery. Moreover, if you want to use an extension cable with them then make sure it is of high quality and can handle the amount of power that is required by the drive.

USB 3.0 External DVD Drives

Here are the external CD/DVD drives that support USB 3.0 interface for faster data transmission and better power delivery.

Rioddas External CD/DVD Drive

A budget external optical drive that supports a variety of CD and DVD formats and supports USB 3.0 interface. It is a plug and play (PnP) drive that does not require additional drivers and supports Windows, Mac and can run on Linux too. It can be used for both reading and writing/burning CDs / DVDs and supports writing speeds of up to 24X for CD and 8X for DVD. The build quality of the drive is pretty good and has got brushed metal construction on the top. The drive is backward compatible with USB 2.0 and USB 1.0 standards or interface.

The external drive has got rubber pads on the bottom that prevents it from slipping on the surface. The only gripe about this external optical drive is that USB cable is short and is non-detachable. This means you have to use a USB extension cable when the USB port is not reachable. On the back of the drive, there is space carved out for the USB cable where it can be tucked in, when not needed, to save space. Overall, a value for money external drive that does the job when you have to deal with a CD or DVD.

Amicool External DVD Drive

Another very good USB 3.0 external optical drive that supports a variety of media formats that include CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD-R DL, DVD RAM. It comes with an in-built cable that has both USB Type-A and USB Type-C connectors. This makes it very handy to use with the latest Macbooks with USB Type-C port. The drive includes anti-slip rubber pads at the bottom and has carved out space, where the USB cable can be stored for convenience.

The build quality of the external drive is decent and the top surface has honeycomb design like a textured surface. It is a plug & play drive and is backward compatible with USB 2.0 and USB 1.0 ports/interface. The built-in USB cord is on the shorter side which may be a bit of concern. However, you can use extensions to make it reach USB ports that are further away. This external ODD can both read and write CD/DVD and supports writing speed of 24X for CD and 8X for DVD. The drive is lightweight and works great for both CD/DVD reading and writing without any issues.

Other Similar USB 3.0 External DVD Drives

• ROOFULL External DVD Drive [with Carrying Case]

External DVD Drives with M-Disc support

Here are some of the best branded external optical disc drives that support M-Disc DVD burning and are equipped with a more powerful laser for that purpose.

ASUS ZenDrive U7M External DVD Writer

An ultra-slim 13mm form factor external DVD writer from Asus that supports M-Disc and other variety of CD and DVD formats. The drive has great build quality and comes with a removable USB cable that comes with one mini USB connector at one end and two USB Type-A connectors at the other for connecting to PC or Laptop. For reading, it can run on a single USB port, but for burning, you will require two USB ports for power otherwise the writing process can fail. It supports 8x DVD / 24x CD write speeds and includes CyberLink Power2Go 8, CyberLink PowerBackup 2.5, Nero BackItUp (includes Android support), E-Green and 12-month subscription to ASUS Webstorage Cloud Service. This external DVD writer is compatible with Windows (XP/Vista/7/8/10) and Mac OSX (10.6 or higher).

LG Super Multi Portable 8X DVD Writer

Another high quality and super slim external DVD writer that supports M-Disc DVD burning. The build quality of the drive is very good and has got brushed aluminum surface on the top. It comes with a removable USB cable that comes with a USB Type-A connector at one end and mini-USB at other and uses one USB 2.0 port only on the computer. Anti-skid rubber pads are provided at the bottom to keep the drive at one place that prevents it from skidding. The drive supports almost all CD and DVD formats and can burn CDs at 24X and DVDs at 8X speed. It is plug and play in operation and is compatible with both Windows and Mac operating systems.

Other Branded External DVD Drives (USB 2.0)

Here are some other good branded external optical drives the come with the USB 2.0 interface.

Dell USB Slim DVD Drive – has a detachable USB cable

Transcend Slim Portable DVD Writer – requires two USB ports for working

Final Words

So, if you are looking for an external CD/DVD drive for reading or writing data for backup then the above mentioned external drives are safe to buy and will serve you good. They are plug & play devices that require no external driver installation and supports Windows, Mac and even Linux. If you have any queries then please ask in the comment section below.

Get a data lifeguard for Mac

Most of the time, when you connect an external hard drive to your Mac’s USB port, you soon see it mount on the desktop. Apple likes to ensure these are easy to find, so they also appear in the Finder in the left-hand column under Devices, since Mac’s treat them the same way as another computer.

However, sometimes, an external hard drive doesn't show up. It’s annoying, especially when you need to transfer something right then. And besides, there can be a risk that data on the external USB pen, hard, or flash drive is corrupt, which means you can’t transfer what you need between devices at all.

Corrupt data can be one reason your Mac won't recognize an external drive, but there are other reasons too. Let’s take a look at why this is happening and how you can get an external drive to appear on your Mac and get recover data to access your documents.

How to fix an external disk drive that won't show up on a Mac

Why an external disk drive is not showing up? There could be a few reasons why a USB flash drive isn’t making an appearance.

Access an External Drive Not Showing on Mac

Get a huge set of top utilities for troubleshooting external hard drives not mounting on a Mac

Start with the basics:

1. Check whether the drive is properly plugged in. It sounds obvious, but since this relies on a wire - either a USB cable or HDMI cable - if it’s not connected properly then it won’t appear on your desktop.
2. Faulty cable. Assuming it’s plugged in correctly, not wobbly or loose, the cable could be at fault. Try connecting the same device with a different cable.
3. Damaged USB or flash drive port. It could be a hardware issue with the Mac. If you’ve got another port, try connecting the device to that one.
4. Reboot your Mac. Sometimes, if a USB disk won't boot, the cause is a macOS issue. Hopefully, some data damage can be fixed by restarting. Choose the Apple menu > Restart. Or press and hold the power button and, when a dialog box appears, click the Restart or press R. Restarting your Mac essentially clears your macOS’s memory and starts it up fresh.
5. Incorrectly formatted drive. Not every external drive is optimized for Macs. It could be that you are trying to connect something only fit to interact with Windows devices. If you’ve got a PC or laptop, it’s worth connecting and seeing if you can access the files through another device. The best way to look for an incorrectly formatted drive is to go to
   Apple (in the top toolbar menu) > About This Mac > Storage.
   See if the external drive shows up here. For more information, go to the same menu option, then select System Report.
6. Mac not formatted to display external drives on the desktop. It could be that your Mac already recognizes the device, but just isn’t showing its icon on the desktop screen. Even if that is the case, the drive will still appear in the left-hand column of the Finder menu under Devices. You should be able to access your drive that way, and, in the Finder menu under Preferences > General, you can check External Drives to ensure that from now on it shows up on your desktop too.
7. Reset NVRAM. To do this, shut down or restart your Mac, switch it back on and immediately press these four keys together for at least 20 seconds: Option, Command, P, and R. It should look as though your Mac has started again; if it has, release the keys when you hear the second startup chime. Hopefully, the hard drive has shown up now.
8. Check Apple’s Disk Utility to see if an external drive is showing up. Disk Utility is within System Preferences, or you can find it using Spotlight. If it is visible, then click the option to Mount, which should make it visible on the desktop and in the External Drives option in the Finder menu.

Unfortunately, if none of those options has worked and the external drive still isn’t visible, then it could have crashed, or be well and truly broken. But there might still be a way you can recover the data on the external drive.

How to show connected devices in Finder

1. Go to the Finder menu and select Preferences (Cmd+comma).
2. In General, click on External disks to ensure that from now on it shows on the desktop.

In the Sidebar tab you can choose which folders and devices will be shown in the left-hand column of the Finder window.

How to add cloud storages to Finder

You can also mount cloud storage as a local drive on your Mac. By connecting Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon to your computer, you get more space for securely accessing and sharing files. For your ease, add cloud drives to Finder with CloudMounter so that you keep them close at hand. You can read detailed instructions on managing cloud storage as local drives here.

Repair the failed external drives with First Aid

The most direct reason your external hard drive could be detected by macOS, but can't be opened is the file system problem.

If your drive is having such problems, you can try to fix them yourself with First Aid and therefore get access to your files. First Aid tool will check the disk for errors and then attempt a repair as needed. It helps to verify and repair a range of issues related to startup HD and external drive problems. If you are able to fix the hard drive or SSD in your Mac (or an external drive) using Disk Utility you will hopefully be able to recover your files.

To run Fist Aid on an external hard drive:

1. Open Disk Utility. You can search for it using Spotlight or via Finder > Go > Utilities
2. Check on your external hard drive, click the First Aid tab and select Run to start running diagnostics.

If First Aid successful in fixing errors, the external drive should be available to mount. If the utility is unable to repair issues, your drive truly is broken or formatted using a file system that the Mac cannot read - in this way we suggest you follow the next steps to recover data from a damaged disk drive.

How to recover data from a crashed drive

Thankfully, there is an app for that. Disk Drill is the world’s premier data recovery software for Mac OS X. Powerful enough to retrieve long-lost, mistakenly deleted files from Macs, external hard drives, USB drives, and camera cards.

Get a file recovery app

With Setapp you get a pack of professional tools for file recovery and Mac maintenance.

An easy way to recover lost files on an external hard drive

Providing you already have Disk Drill Pro version, which you can get automatically by downloading from Setapp:

1. Connect your drive to the Mac.
2. Quit all other applications on the Mac, especially those that may be trying to access the external drive (e.g. iPhoto, Words)
3. Launch Disk Drill.
4. Click on the external drive that you are trying to recover files from. If it has partitions, you will see all of them. If, however, you still don’t see any volume to the external drive then you may need to try some of the steps above again or read the Disk Drill Scanning FAQs.
5. To avoid the external drive being accessed during the recovery process, click Extras next to the drive or drive partition or file, then select Remount Volume As Read Only. A padlock will appear, protecting the drive during the process.
6. Now click Rebuild (or Recover) next to the file(s) you are trying to recover. Once the scan is finished - it may take some time if the files are large - a list of files will appeal.
7. Next, click Mount Found Items as Disk button on the bottom-left below the scan results.
8. Disk Drill “strongly suggests saving the files to a different drive than the one you are trying to recover files from. Saving to the same drive substantially lowers your chances of recovery.”
9. A drive icon will appear, which once you double click will give you the option to open the files as you would do before they were lost. Drag them to another location, such as your desktop or a folder on your Mac.
10. Open the files to ensure they have been recovered properly and safely eject the external drive.

Disk Drill does have other ways to recover lost files but assuming there aren’t complications, this method is the most effective. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available from Setapp, along with dozens of Mac apps that will make your life easier. Never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive again.

A few more tips on getting your files back

1. Macs and third-party apps that look after Macs, such as Disk Drill and iStat Menus come with a S.M.A.R.T. (also known as Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) status monitor. If a SMART check reports errors, then it could mean the hard drive is at risk of failing completely. Within Disk Utility and Disk Drill, there are several solutions for this: Repair Disk Permissions and Repair Disk. If neither of them works, it’s recommended to back up all of the data from the disk, erase it, then run a SMART check again. The external hard drive should show up as Verified.
2. Partitions can get lost within hard drives, temporarily hiding all of the information contained within. Disk Drill can help to identify and restore this information.
3. Within Disk Drill, you can restore data when a hard drive is damaged or add formatting, which is also something Disk Utility can help with.
4. CleanMyMac, another useful app available from Setapp, can help you identify external hard drive errors and repair them. It is an essential tool worth trying when you’re having external hard drive difficulties.

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Get a huge set of top apps for keeping your Mac in shape. Best utilities in one pack, give it a go!

Alternative ways to recover data from an external hard drive

Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) if your Mac shuts down when you plug in an external hard drive. Then use a different port to connect the external hard drive. If you’ve got a battery that you can’t remove:

• Shut down and unplug the power adapter
• Press Shift-Control-Option and the power button at the same time. Do this for 10 seconds
• Release all keys
• Plug the power adapter back in and switch your Mac back on

For Macs with removable batteries, you need to switch them off, remove the battery, then press and hold the power button for 5 seconds. After that, put the battery back in, plug in the power adapter and switch the power on again.

What’s your file format? One reason your Mac isn’t recognizing the hard drive is the file format. Windows uses NTFS file formats, while Macs, up until the introduction of Sierra, have used HFS+. Now, Apple has introduced the Apple File System (APFS) for newer operating systems. It is possible to format a hard drive so it can be read on Mac and Windows computers, providing you format using exFAT. However, if you’re having problems accessing the files and the issue is due to formatting, you will need to connect it to a device it can be read on, and then format the files correctly for the computer you are going to use next.

How to make Ext2/Ext3 drives readable on Mac

The common issue is Ext2- and Ext3-formatted drives are not readable on macOS. There are two ways to access such external drives on your Mac – via Linux OS or FUSE system. The easiest would be installing Linux to a secondary drive or virtual machine.

If you go with Linux installation, dual boot your Mac with Linux on another drive and use FAT32 as a transfer intermediary. If you don’t have a drive to install Linux to, use a virtual machine as an interface for it. Transferring can be done the same way – with FAT32, or via network.

Another option for reading Ext2/Ext3 disks is mounting disk with Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE). Basically, it works as an extra interface enabling file system access via specially installed modules. Here’s how to mount drives with FUSE:

1. Install FUSE for macOS or MacFUSE as well as a fuse-ext2 module.
2. Use the following Terminal command to enable Disk Utility’s debug menu and see all partitions: defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1
3. Attach your Ext2/Ext3 drive and locate the device name via Disk Utility.
4. In your user account, create a folder to be used as a mount point.
5. Use the following Terminal command to mount the drive as read-only: fuse-ext2 /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/mountpoint
6. For write support, use the command: fuse-ext2 -o force /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/mountpoint

And that’s not the only case where Terminal helps you access external drive.

Rioddas External Drive Not Working

Employ the handy all-powerful Terminal, which always comes forward with solutions for difficult problems. Especially if System Information does recognize the USB or hard drive, but continues to hide it from you, disconnect the drive and try to find it using the Terminal, which you can find in Applications > Utilities.

• Once in the Terminal, type in the command diskutil list
• A list with information about volumes and drives should appear
• Look for a section labelled /dev/disk_ (external, physical)
• Make a note of the whole line after the word disk
• Now put the following command into the Terminal diskutil info disk followed by the number or digits assigned to that disk
• Now you should see detailed information about the drive, therefore confirming that your Mac can and does recognize it
• Eject using the Terminal by entering the command diskutil eject disk followed by the number or digits assigned to that disk
• Physically remove the disk from your Mac
• Plug it back in and your Mac should recognize it

Console is also reliable when it comes to solving tricky problems, although it isn’t always that easy to use. You can find Console under Applications > Utilities > Console. Console shows if an external drive or any error is detected under the Errors and Faults tab. If no errors show up, then the problem is not caused by the device.

To sum up, there are lots of potential solutions for a Mac not reading an external hard drive. If we were to pick one, Disk Drill seems to be the most well-rounded, offering plenty of customizations and power in an easy-to-use interface. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available via Setapp, along with 200+ Mac apps that strive to make your life much much easier. At the very least, you’ll never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive ever again.

What Is The Best External Cd Drive For Mac