With today’s external Blu-ray, a bargain is relative. The Mercury Pro SW-5582 comes in at $400 less than the LaCie d2 Blu-ray, but it still costs $650. It has at its core the same  basic drive as the d2 – the Panasonic SW-5582 – but OWC’s version has no software.
The SW-5582’s drive speed is rated at 2X, twice that of 1X drives such as the one in the Dell XPS M1710 (Blu-ray) notebook. It took the SW-5882 a little over 43 minutes to burn a 22.5GB directory structure into an ISO file on a 25GB disk, compared with 3 hours for the Dell’s drive. The SW-5582 can also burn 50GB BD-R and BD-RE disks, as well as single- and dual-layer DVD and CDs. Its DVD+R and DVD-R burn speeds are rated at 8X, compared with 16X for current DVD drives.
You’ll need software such as Nero 7 Ultra Edition Enhanced for recording. To play Blu-ray movies, you’ll need a decoder like CyberLink’s Power DVD Ultra, as well as an HDCP-enabled graphics card and monitor for your system. Still, the Mercury Pro SW-5582 is one of the more affordable external Blu-ray drives on the block.

Pros: Affordable external Blu-ray solution. BD-R burns are much faster than with first-generation Blu-ray drives. FireWire and USB ports.