Discussion Have Blu-Ray drives come down in price?

[mikeymikec]

I assume they must have done because at some point there would have been "the world's first BR drive" for a price that says "I don't mind being fleeced because I like being first", but looking back it strikes me as odd that BR drives never replaced DVD drives in computers. Sure, in the era of DVD drives most software was distributed on optical media so having something was a necessity whereas nowadays most software isn't distributed on optical media, and many computers have gone from having DVDRW drives to no optical drive at all.

I find it strange though that - I assume it's a safe assumption anyway - Sony wants the BR format to increase in popularity because (I assume) it gets licensing revenue from basically anything sold that uses BR, that BR prices - at least in the time I've kept half an eye on them have never dropped to the point where it's a virtual no-brainer to replace DVDRW with a BR drive.

AFAIK BR was released (at least as far as the mainstream is concerned) in 2006 with the PlayStation 3. According to my records in 2005 I was selling 5.25" DVDRW drives for 23UKP so obviously they were the cheaper option than going for the previous 'cheap' option of two optical drives, one for reading DVDs and the other for writing CDs, and that change in the market probably took less than 5 years. Currently I can get a DVDRW drive for 16UKP but BR writer drives are still >60UKP nearly twenty years after the mainstream introduction of the BR drive.

I've only ever seen one BR drive in a big-name PC and that was a Sony VAIO laptop.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Well, here prices have stayed pretty much at the same level for the last 10-odd years. So adjusting for inflation, BD drive prices have come down a little.

The biggest factor in not becoming cheaper is all the various licencing schemes BD drives have to implement. It's not just Sony taking a cut.

As for replacing DVD drives in PCs, it was cheap and cheerful USB drives and fast(er) Internet connections* that did in optical discs. Optical just can't compete well with those, except in specific areas.

*In 2006 I had a 6mbit ADSL line at home. All the telephone line would do. One of my friends had a whopping 20mbit line. Today, I have a 1000/100 coax at home. At a very reasonable price too.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Maybe it was just me, but I installed blu-ray drives as soon as they became available with wider support multi-disc format burning (so probably around 2008). I even have one in my last server I built 2-3 years ago, and that needed a slim/slot load drive.

I am a little disappointed in the fact that many cases are removing the space for a 5.25" drive bays, as I am finding it more difficult to find a new case for my next main desktop build. Fitting a 4080 or 4090 is just not possible in my current case (in reality I will probably be holding off for the 50xx series and just use an existing card in the meantime, but I don't expect the sizes of the cards to get much smaller in this next gen).

 

[mikeymikec]

Maybe it was just me, but I installed blu-ray drives as soon as they became available with wider support multi-disc format burning (so probably around 2008). I even have one in my last server I built 2-3 years ago, and that needed a slim/slot load drive.

I am a little disappointed in the fact that many cases are removing the space for a 5.25" drive bays, as I am finding it more difficult to find a new case for my next main desktop build. Fitting a 4080 or 4090 is just not possible in my current case (in reality I will probably be holding off for the 50xx series and just use an existing card in the meantime, but I don't expect the sizes of the cards to get much smaller in this next gen).

I've got my eye on one that has two 5.25" slots, it keeps going in and out of stock in the UK (Fractal Design Focus G)

As of right now it's in stock... normally I wouldn't dream of buying hardware months in advance but I think I ought to this time.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I've got my eye on one that has two 5.25" slots

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

 

[Brainonska511]

Maybe it was just me, but I installed blu-ray drives as soon as they became available with wider support multi-disc format burning (so probably around 2008). I even have one in my last server I built 2-3 years ago, and that needed a slim/slot load drive.

I am a little disappointed in the fact that many cases are removing the space for a 5.25" drive bays, as I am finding it more difficult to find a new case for my next main desktop build. Fitting a 4080 or 4090 is just not possible in my current case (in reality I will probably be holding off for the 50xx series and just use an existing card in the meantime, but I don't expect the sizes of the cards to get much smaller in this next gen).

I was initially mildly annoyed at this trend in cases, mainly because it didn't seem like a big deal to try and fit a 5.25" drive bay in at the top of bottom of an mATX or ATX case. However, I also found myself using my drive so little that I realized it wasn't a big deal to give up the drive in my desktop. If I really need one, I'll either go with a USB to attach as needed, or use the one in my HTPC to rip.

 

[nakedfrog]

I paid $65 for an internal Blu-Ray RW drive in early 2020 (got a specific model and enclosure so I could rip 4K UHD Blu-Rays and not have to deal with buying a UHD player, finding somewhere to put it in my media center, plugging in another device, etc). Looks like it costs the same on Amazon US currently, the LG WH16NS40. So I guess by your comparison to DVD-RW drives, no, the price hasn't come down. I don't think there's a whole lot of demand for them.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I am a little disappointed in the fact that many cases are removing the space for a 5.25" drive bays, as I am finding it more difficult to find a new case for my next main desktop build. Fitting a 4080 or 4090 is just not possible in my current case (in reality I will probably be holding off for the 50xx series and just use an existing card in the meantime, but I don't expect the sizes of the cards to get much smaller in this next gen).

Yeah, I'm with you on that. Also because optical drives aren't the only use for 5.25" bays.

As a work around, go external. You need something like this:

https://icybox.de/product/archive/IB-550StU3S

I makes choosing a case easier, since you don't have to worry about 5.25" bays. If you do want a modern case with two 5.25" bays, look no further the Fractal Design Pop:

https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/pop/

 

[mikeymikec]

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

Unavailable in the UK apparently.

 

[right_to_know]

Blu-ray drives are disappearing from the shops but there doesn't seem to be a good alternative for longer term storage.

 

[bigboxes]

No one uses optical media much any more. I have an LG Bluray drive in my main rig. That drive is over 9 years old and I almost never use it. I did use it to rip a bunch of dvds to my server within the last year. But that is a rare event these days. It's there if I need it. I have tons of DVD and CD drives that I most likely will never use unless I build a retro box.

 

[mikeymikec]

No one uses optical media much any more.

There was a surprising thread here with a poll that suggested that ~75% of responders here still want/use optical media in their PC. I was quite surprised. I'll happily acknowledge that the regulars of this forum are not a definitive representation of the general public though.

 

[WelshBloke]

Maybe it was just me, but I installed blu-ray drives as soon as they became available with wider support multi-disc format burning (so probably around 2008). I even have one in my last server I built 2-3 years ago, and that needed a slim/slot load drive.

I have one in my PC and I didn't realise that I'd left it unplugged last time I fiddled with the cables in there. It was probably unplugged for a few years before I noticed.
I have a usb HDD cradle that I use for bulk storage and usb drives for portable storage. Both are faster and more convenient than BR.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I would really consider a BD-R M-Disc XL for my data that I absolutely do not want to lose and it's just a few TB so hopefully it will last 1000 years

HDD / Flash / Cloud, all of them pale in comparison when you consider the possibility that you might be 99 years old, want to look at pics of your old sweethearts but can't pay for internet or don't know how to use it anymore coz it's gotten way more complicated than it used to be, lost your cloud passwords or they deleted your data because you missed their warnings etc and flash/HDD data just faded away after decades of not being powered up.

So yes, BD-R seems to be the only hope for old people.

 

[mikeymikec]

@igor_kavinski that's without factoring in the cost of cloud storage both up-front and in terms of ecological footprint.

Though the mental competence aspect could rule out any of the digital options really.

 

[bigboxes]

I have a usb HDD cradle that I use for bulk storage and usb drives for portable storage. Both are faster and more convenient than BR.

I backup all my data using a HDD dock. I have a padded case that houses ten large HDDs that backup everything on my server.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I backup all my data using a HDD dock. I have a padded case that houses ten large HDDs that backup everything on my server.

Howz the power redundancy/protection on the dock? A single surge could destroy everything on all the HDDs if you are unlucky.

 

[mikeymikec]

Howz the power redundancy/protection on the dock? A single surge could destroy everything on all the HDDs if you are unlucky.

Extremely unlucky... I've seen computers destroyed by lightning strikes and the hard drives were still functional.

 

[bigboxes]

Howz the power redundancy/protection on the dock? A single surge could destroy everything on all the HDDs if you are unlucky.

Power is supplied via UPS

 

[igor_kavinski]

Extremely unlucky.

Maybe that's me. I had a 30GB Seagate drive go dead coz I was ironing my clothes. Steam blew towards the PC placed on the carpet at least two feet away, probably due to the CPU fan sucking air in. The HDD was connected to the 2ndary port (it was my data hoarding drive) and the side cover was off. I looked in disbelief as the steam floated through air and went exactly in the direction of the HDD's chipset on the back (WD drives don't expose their chips to the outside so damn you Seagate!). It happened so fast that I couldn't do anything and the drive was never recognized again in Windows or BIOS. I probably still have a DIR command dump of the drive's contents so I can try to recover the games/software I had on it but all the personal data just vanished into thin air. Along with it a big chunk of my memories and hard work of collecting that stuff. Sigh. This was during Win2000/XP era I believe.

 

[bigboxes]

Power is supplied via UPS

I don't iron my clothes next to it. 😂

 

[bononos]

There was a surprising thread here with a poll that suggested that ~75% of responders here still want/use optical media in their PC. I was quite surprised. I'll happily acknowledge that the regulars of this forum are not a definitive representation of the general public though.

Wonder if they are talking about their own collections of pressed disks and not recordables.
I think the production of BD-R blanks is trending down.

 

[Seba]

The Blu-Ray / HD DVD mess did a huge damage. Many were waiting to see who will win that stupid war of competing standards and by the time it cleared up it was too late for a mass adoption by the users. By that time Internet connections got faster, disks drives much larger.

 

[bigboxes]

The Blu-Ray / HD DVD mess did a huge damage. Many were waiting to see who will win that stupid war of competing standards and by the time it cleared up it was too late for a mass adoption by the users. By that time Internet connections got faster, disks drives much larger.

I thought that when I got my Bluray drive I was going to make a bunch of BD discs. The costs were prohibitive and I may have made two. I had new HD TVs throughout my home and a standalone Bluray player in the living room. But instead moved towards all digital. Rarely do I break out physical media. Either stream from the server, streaming or copy to flash drive for portability. Funny, I had stacks of CDRs and DVDs that I had trouble reading. I realized that they weren't always reliable.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Well, I bit the bullet and moved back to a full size case (up from a mid tower). It use to be that a mid tower had at least one 5.25 drive bay (and back in the hey-day, 2-4), but that seems to be no more. Had to get a Fractal Design Define 7 XL to meet my demands for a case that supported a full size ATX board, at least one 5.25 drive bay, and a 7+3 slot configuration (i.e. so a 3 wide GPU could be installed where it's PCB wouldn't break where it connects into the motherboard due to the stress of it's weight).

I mean seriously why any case manufacturer hasn't simply made a mid tower that is an inch or two wider which would allow them to place an optional vertical mount 5.25 bay, and also have room for the 7+3 (or even a 7+4) configuration for alternate GPU orientation is simply beyond me. Adding that inch in width would seem to be so trivial and allow for so much more functionality (space for hard drives on the rear, water pumps, cable/tube routing, offset to move top mount radiators away off axis of the motherboard so there is more clearance on the motherboard for taller components interfering with the radiator/fans, etc....).