You're joking, right?

A SATA DVD drive transfers at around 10-20 MB/s which is less than 500 mbps, a 10th of a 5gbps USB port.

 

Don't buy those crap adapters though... why would you spend 15$ on one when proper external DVD drives are less than 25$ each or less?

 

ex. 20$  LG GP60NB50 8x usb 2.0 external : https://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronics-Portable-Rewriter-GP60NB50/dp/B00C2AMK2M/

 

Well, I thank you for dispelling my concern!

 

I am doing what I am doing how I am doing it because I actually use 5 DVD drives on a fairly regular basis, and require Blu Ray capabilities. I already owned everything but 2 components, one of which I have already ordered. With the duty cycle I require out of them, a cheap portable one like you listed will die, and I know this because I have already killed two!

 

Now, to buy 5 external 5 1/4" enclosures even without drives will cost far more than my solution, which all in is $45 excluding the drives I already owned, not to mention the benefits of one large external box such as needing only 1 USB port and 1 power source, as opposed to 5 of each.

 

Once again, thank you for dispelling my concerns as to data bottle-necking! @mariushm

For this project, can you actually open the insides of the PC, or do you want USB because that's the only option?

 

The reason I ask is because you could actually get a pci-e x1 riser card which uses a USB cable to make the connection between the pci-e x1 slot and the other board which has a pci-e x16 slot (electrically x1).

 

Here's some examples :

 

4.4$ each : https://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-3-0-PCI-E-Express-x1-To-x16-Extender-Riser-Cards-Adapter-Power-Cable-Minings/254289716793

4.5$ each (pci-e 6pin + sata->pci-e 6pin adapter for power) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pci-E-Riser-Pci-E-Express-1X-To-16X-Riser-Card-Usb-3-0-Pci-E-Sata-To-6Pin-P-X1G1/183879573704

 

5$ each (only sata for power) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-E-Express-1x-To-16x-GPU-Extender-Riser-Card-Adapter-Power-Cable-Extend-x1/143151293432

 

Here's the one in first link

 

 

 

You plug the small board in any pci-e slot (can be x1 or higher) and connect the x16 board to it using the USB cable. You only need 12v to the pci-e x16 board, either through a molex connector or you can solder directly in the holes near the molex (footprint is for pci-e 6 pin connector which is 3 pins for 12v, 4 pins for ground, you can use a multimeter if you can't figure it out from the traces)

The USB cable is a bit short (can't be too long because of signal integrity) but if you use a pci-e 2.0 x1 slot (from chipset for example), then you'll probably be able to use a longer QUALITY USB cable.

Next, you could buy one of these for 38$ : https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Dell-PERC-H200-6Gb-PCI-e-SAS-SATA-8-Port-Raid-Controller-From-US-Ship/

It's a 8 port SATA controller ... it's pci-e x4 but can run in pci-e x1 mode after all a pci-e x1 can do 500 MB/s for the pci-e 2.0 , or 1 GB/s for pci-e 3.0... so not really needed to have 4 lanes.

 

 

This one may also work, LSI SAS 9210-8i for 29$ : https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-SAS-9210-8i-8-port-6Gb-s-PCIe-x8-HBA-RAID-SATA-Controller-card-M1015-9211-8I/142676059703

 

You'll also need a couple of these cables, which convert a SFF-8087 to 4 x SATA : https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-SAS-SFF-8087-to-4-SATA-Multi-Lane-Forward-Breakout-Internal-Cable-Brand-New/173837003847

 

 

 

So basically,  5$ for the riser, 40$ for sata controller, 2 x 8 $ for the cables - you have 8 sata ports for the price of four of those usb-sata adapters

Making a tiny plastic/cardboard/metal case to hold the pci-e card outside the system should be easy. You can remove bracket and plug it into the pci-e x16 slot and just use a couple bits of plastic or some insulator so the card won't touch the sides of your "case"

 

And you get 100% speed, practically no latency, no cpu usage due to usb - sata conversions, no compatibility issues if the adapter doesn't support some commands.

 

Another option : 25$ for 4 SATA 6gbps ports on a pci-e x1 card , so you won't need to buy SFF-8087->4xSATA cables : https://www.newegg.com/riitop-pcets3-9215-sata-iii/p/14G-001D-00006

 

Or a very compact no-name 4 port SATA card for 13$ : https://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-E-PCI-Express-1x-To-4-Port-Sata-3-0-III-6G-Converter-Adapter-Controller-Card/312215357227

 

 

 

 

This one's 8 SATA ports for 55$ :

https://www.ebay.com/itm/PCIe-PCI-Express-to-6G-SATA3-0-8-Port-SATA3-Expansion-Controller-Card-Adapter-RH/133094813093

 

 

 

I actually did think about that, but I like the idea of having the ODD's external, in their own box, connected via USB. The reasons I prefer this are twofold. One, I can continue to use this until the drives or controller I have ordered die, as the USB standard will not be going away in the near future., and two, so I can have some freedom of placement. I would also need a new case to occupy the 5 drives, as my case does not have 5 optical drive bays.

 

What you have recommended is very similar to what I ended up with, actually.