External optical drive with integrated USB hub?

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olaf2

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Sep 18, 2014
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Background for my question is that my new Ultrabook does not have an optical drive anymore and "only" 3 USB ports. I've occasionally needed the 4 USB ports of my old laptop and watched movies on it as well. So I'm now looking for an external optical drive and to avoid cable clutter it would be great if this drive had a builtin USB hub as well. If possible it should be USB 3.0, support bluray drives and be powered over USB as well... how hard can it be?

Apparently there are not many matching solutions. So far I found:

- Docking station for the laptop: In my case a ThinkPad Ultrabase Series 3 would match, but it only takes "Ultrabay" drives and seems awfully specific in case I change laptops again. Also I have no idea how the drive is actually connected to the computer (USB 2.0?) and whether that's fast enough for Bluray...

- "Velocity Micro VMultra Drive": Seems to fit the bill, but it's very hard to get outside the US.

- "Newertech miniStack MAX": a bit on the bulky side and seems to require external power supply.

- "Acasis USB Dual External Drive Enclosure w/USB Hub": Seems to be USB 2.0 and requires 2 USB ports on the laptop, and possibly external power as well...

- "Luxburg External DVD-RW Drive 5 in 1": Again, USB 2.0 only
- "Ex-Pro External Slim USB DVDRW": Again, USB 2.0 only

Any other suggestions? Any experiences with any of these solutions? What would you recommend?
 
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olaf2

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Sep 18, 2014
2
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4,510
Not exactly a storm of replies...

Never mind, I've done some more research and found the following other options, just in case anyone else is still using these big old optical disc things:

- "MCE Complement": Seems pretty similar to the VMUltra Drive, but you can actually get this one outside the US. Unfortunately you can only get it with a 2TB hard disk and that makes it rather pricey!

- "Asus VariDrive": USB 3 and all great, but only available with DVD drives and this DVD drive seems to be so "well" integrated, that you can't replace it.

- "Ziboo Zipad Netbook USB Docking Station": Again, a USB2.0 only solution and also rather bulky. Needs external power as well.
- "NU Netbook Dock": Another USB 2.0 solution, and a very bulky one at that! Needs external power.
- "Apricorn Aegis Netdock": See above, although this one would be compact for a change!
- "Marshal DVD Power Up Dock": Not much info, Japan only.

Well, I was not really convinced by any of those. The VMUltra Drive and MCE Complement were my favourites, but they seem really too expensive and too hard to get. In the end I settled on a "Sandberg USB Hub with SmartPhone Sync", which is very compact and saves me carrying around one extra USB cable, in combination with a bog standard external BD reader, a "Samsung SE-506CB" in my case.
 
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