While there is a lot of content available to download or stream online, and most of us have libraries of movies and music on our phones and laptops, physical discs still have their uses.

So if you need it, we have a range of great choices, from compact and affordable to powerful and fully featured.

While many of the best external optical drives come in a smaller form factor that makes them easier to carry around, this is a big choice for top performance. The ASUS BW-16D1X-U measures 2.48 x 6.50 x 9.57 inches, making it a bit of a desk-hogger, but with that extra size you get some serious performance for any task.

The ASUS BW-16D1X-U has fast access times on all types of optical media, so you won’t be waiting around as long. It can access CD-ROM at 160ms, DVD-ROM at 170ms, and BD-ROM at 180ms. Read and write performance is also excellent, with 40X, 16X, and 8X read speeds on CD, DVD, and Blu-ray respectively. It can also burn CD-R at 40X, DVD-R at 16X, and BD-R at 16X.