That said, I recently discovered Tubi, which is completely free, has a crazy amount of shows and movies, and ad blockers seem to work fine. Re-watching Andromeda while I finish up my dissertation. It's been great fun.
On the other hand UHD/4K drives require flashing firmware to get them to rip with MakeMKV and manufacturers have been seemingly patching them. I've not given it an honest try yet.
I haven't had any problems with a random ASUS drive I picked from the libredrive compatibility list (internal with SATA connection though, but you can always get a USB adapter). But was a couple of years ago so it is possible the avilability situation has gotten worse.
The only issues I have had were with brand new releases where the decryption keys weren't yet in the list MakeMKV pulls. But that is always only a short-lived problem.
I was doing research and that is what I found. Seems like a gamble if you order on Amazon- could get old stock with older firmware, but it is random.