BR-816SU2 Buffalo, Best Burner Dollar for..

Overall Rating33333

Best Burner Dollar for Dollar

The Buffalo MediaStation 8X External Blu-ray Drive (BR-818SU2) is a very capable read/write device. I have found it to work on every disc type I have thrown at it including Blu-Ray (commercial movies and blank read/write media). If you want to achieve the highest rated speed for burning at 8X your PC must accept the eSATA connection. I purchased a SIIG eSATA II ExpressCard/54 RAID (SC-SAE612-S1) to make the connection to my Dell XPS M1330 w/Vista Ultimate.

You should know that the 8X speed of the Buffalo drive is dependent upon the rated speed of the blank media used. At this time most Blu-Ray blank media is rated at 1x-2X write speed. Panasonic sells blank 25GB Blu-Ray BD-R discs rated at 6X. I have backed-up several Blu-Ray movies using this device with excellent results (you must have the appropriate free or extra cost “rip/burn/authoring” software installed on your computer). All burns have been playable in my Sony stand-alone Blu-ray player as well as my Sony PS3 and on my Dell XPS M1330.

The construction of the unit is solid and feels very well built. It can be setup vertically or horizontally. A nice feature is that it has dual controls to open/close the drive bay configured to accommodate either a vertical or horizontal setup. There are LED lights to indicate power, disc loaded and drive in use. This may be a little picky but I found the green LED’s to be a bit old-school. I would have rather seen cool blue LED’s instead…hey…it’s a Blu-ray drive!

The Buffalo MediaStation 8X External Blu-Ray Drive (BR-818SU2) also comes with the requisite cables for USB or eSata connection (the eSata cable was a surprise.) Other features of note are a dedicated Power on/off switch (most drives are always on by default), Auto on/off or Manual on/off setting, Mounting point for a lock, Installation CD with CyberLink BD Solution, 1 - Panasonic 6x 25GB Blu-Ray blank disc (the Panasonic disc may be a limited-time promotional item) and User Guide (which is cheap in design and looks like a copy one would make themselves). The CyberLink BD Solution to play Blu-Ray discs on your computer did not perform that well for me. I found Corel WinDVD 9 plus Blu-ray to be a much better solution.

Overall, I would recommend the Buffalo MediaStation 8X External Blu-ray Drive (BR-818SU2) to anyone looking for an external option for Blu-ray functionally.

Update (2/5/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen.

The featured review for this product, Buffalo Technology External MediaStation 8x eSATA & USB 2.0 Blu-ray Writer BR-816SU2 Black Electronics, was written by Ajtrek.

The average rating for this item is 3 out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.

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Reviews (3)

Thomas A. Cameron

March 26th, 2010 at 3:04 pm    


Overall Rating44444

Solid drive
I bought this disc is a Blu-ray external drive for my work PC. So far it has performed very well. The unit feels solid, and the eSATA connector is burnt, even the large hard drives very fast. Compared with USB2 devices, this device generates system loads much lower than when running at high speed, which is very convenient in a workplace.


Ajtrek

April 2nd, 2010 at 5:07 am    


Overall Rating44444

Best Burner Dollar for Dollar
Rated 4 stars.


Michael Hally

April 4th, 2010 at 10:10 am    


Overall Rating11111

EXTREME Disappointment!
I purchased this Buffalo Optical drive hesitantly at first due to the high price tag attached but figured ‘you get what you pay for’ applied here. Beware! I am running Windows Vista 32bit with 3 gig Dual Core 4 Gig’s of RAM and a nvidia 8500 series video card with 1 gig on board… This is more than the minimum Buffalo calls for - in addition to this I have a new laptop configured with a 2.5 gig Core Duo and 4 gig of RAM also… Neither one of these machines would run the drive out of the box… They both saw the drive - even attempted to play a Blu-ray movie, once successfully although took way too long to load… There are NO instructions or a user guide included with this $350 drive and the so-called 24/7 tech support which still had me waiting 15 minutes for a rep at 3am was less than helpful or even indicated a desire to continue support at one point stating it must be the drive… Oh and one more thing the drive comes out of the box without region set which you will have to do manually using Device Manager!

Drive 2… Same issues both computers… Only this time I bring on board a system using XP and above average video and processor… Same issues… Now the rep says… “Might be the media” I’m using a Memorex BD-RE and BD-R that I purchased at Office Depot, on that advice I buy a more expensive Sony BD-RE… Now the drive will format but still has issues loading most of my Blu-ray playbacks and when using burn software like Nero 9 or DVDneXtCOPY I have no luck at all burning - the drive starts the process and all looks good - but spins away with a 0% progress bar all through the night not once, not twice but on 3 attempts with each program…

Tech Support: “Well this is the first time we are hearing this… Sorry I don’t know what to tell you, wish I could help.” After waiting 20 minutes at 8am… NO MANUAL, NO SUPPORT, $350, 2 DRIVES, $150 IN SOFTWARE… BEWARE! My advice… The only redeeming quality of this overpriced nightmare is the rugged design and solid feel to the drive. But looks don’t get the job done! Get an internal drive at 1/3 the cost and if you need portability buy an external case for your functioning internal drive!
I am getting an internal drive and calling it a day… The internal BD burner by Liteon is a great alternative!! No problems at all - just can’t take it on the road unless you get the external case which I am going to do… Save yourself the money and the hassle!


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