OWCMercury Pro USB 3.2 External Optical Drive Enclosure for 5.25" SATA CD/DVD/Blu-ray – Aluminium Case, Fanless, Plug & Play, Compatible with Mac & PC – No Drive

The new computer I recently bought, like many these days, had no optical drive. I wanted a mains powered optical drive rather than the portable USB-powered type. The CD/DVD drive in my last computer worked fine so it made sense to repurpose it before that computer was dumped. The OWC Mercury Pro enclosure looked perfect to house the old drive, and it was.The enclosure looks very smart in brushed and textured aluminium and is well made. It was very simple to install the old CD/DVD drive (a LiteOn IHAS124 24x drive) and it fitted perfectly, leaving about a 5mm space between the rear of the drive and the circuit board. The supplied USB cable was far too short so I bought a better quality 1.8m USB3 cable. The supplied power adapter had the correct UK pin arrangement.In use, the unit is impressive. As a test I transfered 9 compilation music CDs to the new computer (a Win 11 PC), which it did very quickly, averaging 6-7 seconds per track thanks to the USB3 connection. Write speed is also good, transferring 10 JPEGs of 12-15Mb from computer to CD in one minute. Clearly this depends on the installed optical drive but the USB3 connection of the OWC Mercury Pro certainly helps. Overall I'm very pleased with the looks, construction and performance of the OWC enclosure and certainly do recommend it.

Solidly built and fairly easy to install DVD drive.The drive is working fine and seems to do everything I want it to.It has a very strange USB connection to the case and a cable is supplied but seems a bit short. It’s unfortunate that it’s still USB 2 connection although it works using an adapter.The only downside for me is the extortionate price, if it was £20 cheaper I would recommend it.

There's no mistaking this enclosure - it's shiny metal, though I'm sure it feels like aluminium, not the stainless steel in the description, feels well finished and very substantial - this isn't going to bend or deform if dropped. Having said that, the front plate arrived slightly bent, something others have commented on - resist the urge to straighten it as it will straighten when you asssemble the unit with a drive in it.Talking of drive, I put a Lite-On drive in the unit which was easy - connect the SATA and power connectors at the rear and position the drive so that the screw holes align, then put the 8 supplied screws in. Putting in all 8 helps prevent the frame from distorting and generating noise when the drive is active. Also, don't overtighten the screws or the grommets won't absorb vibrations and you'll hear (and feel) the result of your overtightening - just tighted enough to slightly deform the grommets. Slip the two parts together and screw together - if the front panel didn't straighten itself when you screwed the drive in bend to shape now with finger power (if you do it earlier you'll probably bend too much and end up having to remove your original bending).Attach the power supply, plug inot a USB3 socket and you're good to go - you'll have a smart looking unit that feels and looks like it'll last for years. It'll last much longer than the drive you put in it and as replacing the drive is easy it'll last as long as you need it for - it's unlikely you'll need to buy a replacement ever. I'm sure it can be spray painted if you feel like a change of colour/finish (but take the drive out and cover the SATA-USB board and sockets first).Highish price, but high quality - therefore good value.

These days external usb i/F cases for half height drives are as cheap as chips, but finding a case for a full height 3.5 inch optical drive is getting progressively more difficult. I like a solid box, weighty enough noyt to be easily knocked off its perch, and robust enough to last a few years. Optical drives are no longer fashionable, but I will need one to rip my cds and install software for a while yet. I put a Plextor DVDRW drive into the case. It was easy and intuitive to do. I confirm that purchasers will NOT need to "straighten out" the drive casing to go over the top of the installed optical drive - when the optical drive is slotted in and the supplied screws and pedestal feet are screwed in the "benT" strip is automatically straightened out. I only had one slight problrm in that one of the screwholes on the base of the optical drive was a fraction out from its pedestal screw hole. I'm not sure if this was the case or the Plextor drive's fault. Just loosening the other pedestal screws a little and applying a bit of pressure let me get the fixing screws into all the holes, and I could then tighten them up. If you are only going to buy a DVDRW optical drive for £10 - £20, you could just get a USB/SATA interface and power supply for about £20. It would do the same job but a bare drive wouldn't look as nice or be as robust..

This enclosure has many positives: it supports a reasonable range of shorter length optical drives, provides a fairly quick but secure way of installing the (purchased separately!) drive and lends its weight to being a stable platform for the media being used with the drive. The supplied usb cable is of good quality and reasonably long but perhaps could be either a dual usb-a/-c or include an usb-a to usb-c adapter.The power supply included was not fitted with a mains plug for the UK or Rep. of Ireland - an adapter was included which puts the device at risk as the 2-pin mains to 12V/3A can so easily fall out of the adapter. I’d like to see items sold for these markets supplied with a proper 3-pin UK/Ireland mains plug!