Panasonic Blu-Ray Slim Drive (laptop) Compatibility

CD, DVD and (Ultra HD) Blu-ray Writers
#1

Hello. I own an Asus z70va notebook (fits 12.7mm drives). My question is for Asus notebook owners (and all notebook owners in general).

How many people have successfully upgraded their notebook optical drives to a Panasonic Blu-Ray (UJ-210, UJ-215, UJ-220, etc)? Were there any bios/firmware issues regarding drive detection? What about connectors…did you need an adapter of some sort?

Has anybody had problems fitting Panasonic drives (any) into Asus notebooks? The reason I ask is because the connectors do seem different and I wonder if any adapters/attachments are available to help solve any potential issues.

Thanks for your help.

#2

The Panasonic UJ-210, UJ-215 and UJ-225 use the standard IDE/ATAPI interface for laptop so you should be fine.

#3

Zevia, thx for your input. I sent you a PM with further details.

I’m sure others have come across problems with 12.7mm drive compatibility. So if you have a modular bay specifically designed for 12.7mm drives, not all of them will actually fit.

Maybe this isn’t the correct forum to be discussing this, but I felt this was the best place to find blu-ray users. Plus there could be bios/firmware issues as well (in the event, unlikely imho, that your notebook doesn’t recognise the drive).

Thx

#4

Well this problem has been more complex than I originally thought. I guess a good solution is to find a blu-ray slim drive and make it into an USB 2.0 (or firewire) external drive instead.

I’ve never owned an external writer for laptops (USB or firewire). How much of a drop-off in performance/reliability can I expect (if any)? Thx! :slight_smile:

#5

In my experience with laptop drives, the bare drive itself should be all the same but for some laptops, their fittings to hold the drive could be different. You can try to take apart the fittings from the original drive in your Asus notebook and try it with your friend’s UJDA750 drive. Let us know how it goes.

Regarding external cases, performance will depends on the case’s chipset and your laptop specs. I see that your Asus is using Pentium M processor. I believe a minimum of Core Duo or higher and a good graphic card is needed to get full use of blu-ray playback, unless you need the blu-ray slim drive for data storage only.

Did you already purchase the slim drive?