BUFFALO MediaStation 6X USB 2.0 Portable Blu-Ray Writer - BR-PX68U2/BK

I put this Blu-ray writer on my Wish List and I received it as a gift for 2010 Christmas. I was needing a way to make backup copies of my purchased Blu-ray movies for the kids because they were constantly losing them or getting them scratched up. I connected it to my Dell Studio 1749 laptop, via my USB hub because I have several other external drives connected simultaneously. I also connected the separate AC power adapter that was included with the Blu-ray writer. The next thing I did was download and install a trial version of separate software to enable me to make backup copies of Blu-ray discs (I only used the trial version of the software until I found out it worked for sure, then I was more than happy to purchase the full version of the software ($60) in order to backup all my Blu-ray discs in the future). Next, I used the Blu-ray writer with the separate software I downloaded to create a Blu-ray disc image file (.iso) of a Blu-ray disc I wanted to make a backup copy of. I saved the Blu-ray disc image file (.iso) on one of my external hard drives until I got a blank Blu-ray disc to burn it on. Since I also received the Optical Quantum 25GB 4X BD-R Logo Top Spindle 25 pcs for Christmas, I had to convert the Blu-ray disc image file to fit on a 25GB blank Blu-ray disc, which was one of the options I selected before I created the Blu-ray disc image file. After I got finished creating the Blu-ray disc image file on my external hard drive, all I did was insert one of the Optical Quantum 25GB 4X BD-R Logo Top Spindle 25 pcs in the Buffalo Blu-ray Writer and the rest was history! It worked perfectly, but took several hours to copy/write because it's not near as fast as a DVD writer, but this should be expected due to the huge amount of data that is required for the Blu-ray discs. I'm not complaining about the speed, because the backup I made works great on my Blu-ray player in the living room!

I've used this Writer for several BD-RE 50G discs now and I can say that I am generally happy. The Verbatim discs burn around 3.1x avg and as high as 4.2x (Imgburn) which is better than the advertised 2x. I am glad they sent me an external power supply as the chargeable port I use on my laptop is just short in the supplied power. The blue light lights just a bit brighter with the supply. It uses the Sony drive so I know it comes from the source of Blu-ray and isn't a knock-off of some kind. The outside black housing is just right and was exactly as the picture shows. It is sturdy and put together well with the connections on the back. It can even be tethered to a cord for security.

Now the software that was supplied is partially okay. The turboUSB really makes a difference. Without it, it maxs out at 0.9x. So you have to install it or you could wait practically forever for a large burn. As mentioned above, Imgburn reported an average of 3.1x and has gone up from there at points. Impressive! The Cyberlink software is marginal at best for blu-ray. Most of the functions require an upgrade and the PowerDVD software fails at running it and selecting menu items. I have an on-going ticket with Cyberlink right now (Buffalo didn't want to touch this issue which is fine.) but I am not confident in the resolve because I hardly think they could do anything concidering it is very old software (3 yrs) and there are no updates to speak of available. Fortunately I use other software to burn and encode my blu-rays and will not probably use the Cyberlink software for anything anyway. It's just too bad I have a whole suite that is defective at the core product. As far as firmware or driver updates: nadda Windows7 is using a 2006 driver build (way before Windows7 was released) and it recognises it fine but you'd think it would update for 64-bit or something special, right? Sony has a firmware update but the OEM (Buffalo) has it installed already (1.02) so it doesn't matter.

Would I recommend this product? Sure! Would I buy it again? Probably!

Update: 6/16/11: I resolved the Cyberlink problem by surfing the Internet. I was getting a CLHelp error which crashed the PowerDVD application. If you google the error it will point to a few solutions which worked for me. But the earlier part of my review still holds: most of the Blu-Ray functions I want to use require upgrading (bummer).

Update: 6/19/11: Another Verbatim BD-RE disc jumped the writing speed to 6.5x! Avg write = 9mb/s! That is 32.4 gigs an hour!!! Absolutely amazing!

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This is a great burner. I've had no issues with it what so ever. Burns as it should. I tried the SONY external burner also and I like this one better. It seems to be a little more solidly built than the SONY.

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Works great!! Exactly as described. Have been using it for the past month playing and burning blu rays with absolutely no issues what so ever.

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I got this burner on Christmas 2010 but I start using it almost a year later; I installed the software that came with the burner on a laptop running windows 7 32 bits. The installation was easy and the drive was recognized without any issues.

The burning process took a little bit longer to tune than expected, I was initially getting an error on closing the disc and getting very frustrated because I bought the expensive verbatim blue ray discs, these do not come cheap.

Anyway I started to do some research online and I came across other users having the same issues, since the drive

was unopened for almost a year I decided to clean the lens; I bought a CleanDrx for Blue-ray and after completing the cleaning operation the max burning speed that the drive automatically detects went from 4X to 6X(I forgot to mention that I initially assumed that 6X was a marketing claim :) )

Cleaning the lens definitively improved the performance I was able to close a couple of the 25 Gig verbatim disc but I was still having the error code on closing some of the discs, at this point I was burning at 4X and powering the driver with the external power supply to provide all the necessary power.

The next step was to stop using the software that came with the unit, I decided to install NERO and give it a shot, this last action completed the tuning of the driver for me. I have been burning over 20 discs without a single incident since I start using NERO for the burning, I have the trial version but I will purchase it.

Needless to say that I would recommend the hardware but not the software.