The 11 Best Thunderbolt 3 Bluray drives (2023 reviews)

There are several advantages of having a thunderbolt 3 bluray drive. Let’s take you step by step, type by type, and find the best thunderbolt 3 bluray drive for you.

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Our Top Picks:

Best Overall: Buy: Asus Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive READ REVIEW

Best For Optical Disc Burner: Buy: OWC Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive READ REVIEW

Best For archiving And long term Data: Buy: Plethora7 Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive READ REVIEW

Best For Ipad: Buy: Archgon Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive READ REVIEW

Best For traveling On planes: Buy: Sea tech Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive READ REVIEW

Best For Chromebook: Buy: Mthstec Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive READ REVIEW

Best With mackbook Pro: Buy: Buffalo Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive READ REVIEW

Best With Your Macbook Air: Buy: Nolyth Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive READ REVIEW

Best With Most Blu Ray Player programs: Buy: Dainty Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive READ REVIEW

Best reliable Burner: Buy: Pioneer Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive READ REVIEW

Best With Free Software: Buy: Guamar Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive READ REVIEW

Best Overall: Asus Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive

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There are many kinds of USB cables with different connectors. It's USB 3.0, linux-compatible, whisper-quiet, works well with MakeMKV, and is SUPER fast. The drive is an external drive that will play movies from DVDs and Blu-Rays as well as play CDs and load software from CDS and DVDs. It has a design for luxury look and clean aesthetics.

The fact that it has a concealed drive door flap makes it double protected from dust entering the drive internals. It allows the maximum data storage of 128 gb on one disc. It is built with some pretty hefty encryption designed to stop piracy. The fact that it has a concealed drive door flap makes it double protected from dust entering the drive.

• Great value on an excellent multi-format burner drive
• Cheaply made and has a wonky eject button
• Full-size housing, external power supply with inline transformer, usb-3 cable
• You can convert movies for playback on android and ios devices

Best For Optical Disc Burner: OWC Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive

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The owc thunderbolt 3 bluray drive should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. This mercury pro bluray drive is a LG WH16NS40 and the mercury pro optical enclosure. It comes with a sleek, durable aluminum chassis, and high-speed usb 3.0 interface, and mercury pro delivers reliable performance that matches its good looks. It is made from inorganic, rock-like material for permanent data storage, protected from data rot and extremes of light, humidity and temperature change. It does not switch off the power brick, which will continue to consume a small amount of electricity, even with the drive switched off.

The USB 3.0 blu-ray drive is plug-and-play capable with these machines and requires no other software besides MacOS's built-in DVD player app. It comes with a smooth and well supported tray mechanism. The M-disc is an archival-quality storage solution that protects your data from degradation and loss for 1, 000 years or more. It comes with high-speed usb 3.0 connectivity, playback of optical media, data transfer, and archive all happen as fast as possible, with bandwidth to spare.

• Sturdy case, works well with blu-ray drive
• All metal case with nice finish and silkscreen logo
• Solid build, twice as fast as 8x burner

Best For archiving And long term Data: Plethora7 Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive

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Plethora7 makes beautiful and great drive with classic and smartly choosen materials. This CD dvd cd external optical drive and burner is one of the smallest and lightest in the world, supporting bdxl and m. It can carry up to 100gb of data per disc and can last 100 years unlike regular discs. The drive is great and the fact that it comes with a protective case is a bonus.

The flip-top burner is top notch & portability is perfect with the right case. It works well with dvdfab software. The cord is a USB 3 compatible cord, only takes one slot (unlike the LG which takes 2 USB slots), and has a pretty good read speed. The drive is a lift lid versus slide the disk in. The flip-top burner is top notch & the drive is perfect with the right case. It can carry up to 100gb of data per disc and can last 100 years unlike regular discs.

• Not too much vibration unless you've got bad disks
• Splendid performer for dvd and blu-ray viewing
• Speed just as spec'ed, no hitches/glitches
• Great little light weight portable blue ray player/recorder

Best For Ipad: Archgon Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive

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If you want nothing less than best desirable drive, then archgon thunderbolt 3 bluray drive is the one you should definitely consider. It plays UltraHD Blu-ray discs, but you need hardware and software ready. It reads 4K Blu-rays, normal Blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs. It has higher pitch density and a tremendously higher storage capacity that is needed. It comes with either a dual usb 3.0/2.0 connector and a single usb type c adapter. It's a single command and takes about 30 seconds.

The product comes with two cables and it is important to use the cable most compatible with your computer to burn Blu Ray discs correctly, although it burns DVD media fine using either cable. The drive doesn't play the movies, it just reads the data and sends it on. It does sound like a spaceship taking off.

• Fast, runs quietly, and so far very stable device
• Plays cds and dvds out of the box with media player or vlc
• Really works ripping 4k uhd disks
• Noticeable, quiet hum/whine while reading a bluray disc

Best For traveling On planes: Sea tech Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive

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The sea tech thunderbolt 3 bluray drive is suitable and reliable and fits well with your daily purpose. This is a pretty kickin' Blu ray player. It has a panasonic drive and it matches Apple products nicely. It works well with the 11 inch air, reaching both USB ports. It comes with any software to play a blu-ray disc.

The look of the product matches Apple's style. If you're just looking to watch blu-ray movies on your computer, this is very nice, small, and is USB powered so you don't need to plug it in the wall.

• Works fast without any sound etc
• Small and compact enough to carry in your laptop case
• Lot of satisfied buyers

Best For Chromebook: Mthstec Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive

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The mthstec thunderbolt 3 bluray drive's high-end materials makes sure that it ages well with use. The Mthstec Blu-ray drive can bring more convenience and happiness to your work and life. It has a storage compartment for usb-a and usb-c cables, really neat. It can only spin so fast without flying off into the sunset. It also comes with a USB Mini port on the back of the drive and another cable with a USB Mini connector at one end and two connectors (USB-A and USB-C) at the other end.

This unit is mainly for laptops as the cord is rather short. The operation is smooth and at an acceptable volume for a portable drive. The CD-ROM is very quiet and works very well.

• Works great, reads dvds and blu-rays just fine
• High-quality and fast playback and quiet startup
• Support 3d player and enjoy clarity to nearly 4k quality

Best With mackbook Pro: Buffalo Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive

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We know from years of feedback from readers, customers and amazon sellers, what most people want in a convenient and appropriate drive. The buffalo thunderbolt 3 bluray drive is exactly that - it's a simple drive that hits all the right notes. It is ideal for users seeking the best playback and burning performance of blu-ray discs, dvds or cds on their pc. It has a cool blue led. It can burn blu-rays from the operating system. It features CD's BD' and DVD's, and runs off USB. It will also alow you to add music, titles and menus.

This device just record or play media resources as DVDs. It is easy to use, compatiable with both mac and windows.

• Does a fine, fast job of ripping disks
• Easy set-up, good software to play cds and dvds
• Solid build, fast usb 3, very minimal noise, and comes with full cyberlink software

Best With Your Macbook Air: Nolyth Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive

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The nolyth thunderbolt 3 bluray drive should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. The NOLYTH 5-in-1 External Blu-ray Drive works flawlessly as advertised and operates in all ways per the manufacturer’s instructions. It comes with the lastest usb 3.0 and usb 3.0 type-c interface, higher speed for data transfering, strong error correction ability, impact resistance, low noise and low power consumption. The right side of the Drive has independent slots for TF and SD Cards. It looks more high-end and has a stronger texture.

The Drive is securely packaged in a very nice carrying case with compartments for the drive itself, and the enclosed interface cables and instruction manual. It’s semi-rigid and has a bit of padding, so it’s quite protective when the unit is being stored. You can use the softwares to complete various tasks such as watching dvd/bd movies, listening music cds, burning/ ripping cds / dvds/ bds, installing software/ system/ games, backing up data to discs and more. The Drive does not heat up excessively and only generates a mild hum.

• Very well and carefully designed and made
• Excellent blu ray and dvd drive for mac
• Good investment for long term

Best With Most Blu Ray Player programs: Dainty Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive

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The dainty thunderbolt 3 bluray drive might be a relatively new release, but it's still nothing short of impressive this year, thanks to multiple price cuts and added new features over the past few months. The destructive power of small children can defeat any technology. It uses two different cables, usb and tpc. It is free software and it will read almost any dvd and blu-ray disks. It does play normal blu ray/ dvd and cds. It also burns Cds/DVDs/blu ray DVDs. The Blue ray player for laptop has powerful storage capacity and fast reading speed. It can be easily organized when not in use.

• Looks good, plays well, plug & play
• External blu-ray drive store your memory, keep your beautiful memory forever
• Easy to recognize by almost all computers and laptops

Best reliable Burner: Pioneer Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive

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The pioneer thunderbolt 3 bluray drive gives the top-tier drive a run for their money by offering flagship specs at a much more affordable price. This device is instantly recognized by Windows 10 so there is no tedious driver loading and set up. It features such as powerread, auto quiet mode, and pureread. It's capable of writing at the rated speeds on all media types and likewise for reading. It uses a USB 3 MicroB port.

It is a more or less "bare drive" in a box. It's easy to install and operates very good, great video. It comes with bdxl and m-disc support, so you can now back up your files with fewer discs than ever before, and since the drive is portable and usb bus-powered, all of this can be done virtually anywhere.

• Nice addition to an older pc with a dvd only player-writer
• Good brand reputation

Best With Free Software: Guamar Thunderbolt 3 Bluray Drive

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The guamar thunderbolt 3 bluray drive's high-end materials makes sure that it ages well with use. This Blu ray drive has 1 sd card reader, 1 tf card reader and 2 usb3.0 port hubs. There is a color-changed light on the shell, once you plug the external bluray dvd drive to your laptop/pc desktop, it slowly changes from red to green to blue, which makes the bluray drive more charming. It also acts as a mini usb hub, allowing you to add additional usb 3.0 devices.

The only other potential advantage this has over a branded Pioneer drive is the fact that it has a tray so the discs are inserted horizontally rather than having a hinged lid. It offers a good amount of protection. It does take a little bit of advanced knowledge of the operating system if you want to get it to work with Windows 10 though. It does make a little noise while running but it runs.

• Comes with a nice case for travel
• Reads and writes cd/dvd/br very well
• Delivers what they promise