OWC Mercury 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.

Purchased this for use with an external CD/DVD drive. Quick delivery and well packaged. The product itself is made of metal. It has an inner bay that you mount your drive to, and this fits inside the outer housing. Everything is secured with screws (provided) and is very easy to assemble. The build quality is very good - it feels weighty, solid and robust. The enclosure looks smart and tidy. So far performance via the USB 3.0 seems great. Would heed the advise of other reviewers on here while assembling - resist the temptation to straighten the front panel. It arrives looking slightly bowed / bent, but this flattens out once you slide the inner bay into the outer housing and screw it all together. Also - don't over-tighten the mounting screws which secure the drive in place as it will prevent the rubber grommets from damping any vibrations. Would give 5/5 stars, but feel the price is still a little bit steep. Yes it is good quality and should last many many years of use, but would have felt slightly more comfortable paying around £40 for it. No regrets, but I'm hoping I won't need to purchase another any time soon!

Way better reusing an old internal drive in this caddy than using a thin external drive. A branded skinny external CD drive began to fail (became noisy/unbalanced and limited its read speed) so I decided to reuse an old DVD/CD ROM drive (20 years?) in this case than get a new external drive - and it was like some kind of huge relief. The skinny external drive couldn't read CD past 24x even when it was working - while I can now get 47x. It is also nice using a button to eject or a gentle push on the tray to load. The front panel (letterbox) is part of the cradle that slides into the aluminium extrusion. That is a weak point perhaps as it could be thicker or more rigid. Mine was OK. It is trivial to assemble - there are no instructions in the box - but then you hardly need any especially if you have inserted or removed any kind of SATA drive into or from a PC. The only thing to note is the rubber feet are not adhesive which you'll find out soon enough if you went ahead and screwed the cradle in place in the housing and had an ah-ha moment. The provided cable is long enough for my purposes with the drive sitting on top of a desktop PC. Price has gone up since I bought it - not good. Don't know why some outfit doesn't produce a full size fast external drive with a motorized tray all ready made - it would be no more expensive than this enclosure.

I read all the reviews and was apprehensive about ordering this device as there seemed to be a problem regarding the power unit when ordering for use in the UK. I decided to take a gamble. The package arrived a week early. The packaging was superb and the UK adaptor was included. I had ordered a good quality USB 3 data cable of the length I required. Everything was very easy to assemble and works just as it should. The enclosure is built like a tank and is rock solid on the desk when in use.

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.

Well built, works great for short drives like the LG WH10NS40, however it’s not suitable for Pioneer BDR-209DBK as they are too long - they poke out of the front and the mounting screw holes don’t align.

Nicely finished aluminium case. I have no complaints or observations beyond the fact that it is expensive. I've had enough of Microsoft, their software is overpriced and with as many holes as a colander - a hackers paradise. The Mac Studio didn't have provision for an optical drive and this answered the need.

Didn't work out of the box due to faulty power adapter. NB: Other people in the UK rating 1 star reviews have noted the same thing. I triple checked the UK plug adapter that clicks on firmly with a nice 'click' sound, was indeed seated correctly. The power adapter that came with it and didn't work is: KTEC P3225 Model: KSA-36W-120300D5 Input 100-240v 50/60Hz 1.0A Output 12.0v 3.0A 36W I had, by fortune, a spare power adapter at home, so I used this to test if it was a faulty power adapter and it worked first time and the drive was detected correctly in Windows 11 - proving it didn't work out of the box because of a faulty supplied power adapter, not due to a incorrectly fitted SATA power/data connector internally or any other reason. At this price, in my opinion, this is not good enough. Otherwise it's an adequately manufactured unit with a nice aluminium outer shell. My only other complaint is the USB cable is far too short and the mains cable on the power adapter is too short also.

Je l'ai pris car ayant un précédent modèle avec l'arrière en plastique et la façade en plastique qui s'est cassée à cause de la matière fragile que c'est et qui était devenu irréparable. Ce modèle l'owc Mercury est de qualité tout en métal .Le lecteur blu-ray étant stable à l'intérieur est devenu silencieux. Avec les logiciels de gravure ,le graveur Blu-ray Asus est immédiatement reconnu. Les seuls défauts qui sont mineurs ( c'est la raison pour laquelle j'ai mis 5 étoiles) : 1) le transformateur d'alimentation est bizarre,il semble y avoir une lumière led verte d'activité mais elle ne s'allume pas ( ? ) 2) ça aurait été bien des vis de fixation mieux adaptées car si on les enfonce trop ,elle ne sont plus retenues par les rondelles caoutchouc antivibration . Des rondelles rigide ( métal par ex. ) auraient été bien pour éviter d'enfoncer les vis. ( NOTE: pour ceux qui auraient perdu le transformateur est ces spécifications techniques,je laisse une photo des inscriptions en façade)

sturdy and good one

Very premium and robust aluminium (luckily not stainless steel anymore) case. Works flawlessly with macOS 11.6.

So far, so good. I did a lot of searching for an enclosure to house my optical drive, which I had to salvage from my prior desktop for my new computer. My Asus drive was purchased with a computer when optical drives probably peaked, so it has all the features you now have to hunt for, and from reviews often still don't work. My drive fit perfectly in this enclosure and was easy to install. Having the ability to flick a switch to turn it off when not in use without disconnecting it from power or my computer is nice and I've been in the habit of turning it off in the hope that prolongs my drive's life. I would have liked to have found a unit with more than passive cooling, but from all accounts this is about the best choice on the market. With any luck, my drive will just keep working for years. Note that this is a very sturdy enclosure. I didn't feel like I was stuck with plastic crap for once, and hopefully that also helps with cooling.

The enclosure was very well made. Cover was aluminum with inner casing with electrical connectors of good quality. It fits my Asus CD drive very snugly. I am pleased with my purchase. The enclosure with my CD drive work very well.