Suggestions & ?'s about optical drives

frldyz

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I have about half the components for my 1st build.
A lot of people are telling me optical drives are becoming less and less necessary.
That kind of confuses me because how else would I install CD software that I buy and play games? I understand a lot can be purchased/downloaded online.

So after looking @ optical drives I see there are now Blu Ray" and "Blu Ray burners". I assume these are also optical drives? Are these drives that will also play Blu Ray DVDs? I also saw something about using a "Blu Ray" disc to use to copy/store files? And I read something about BDXL that can store upwards of 128gb per disc? They are not cheap. And it might be cheaper to purchase just an Ext. HD, but I also like the thought of knowing everything is backed up on discs...
'1: Can a Blu Ray drive also be used as a basic optical drive?
2: Does a Blu Rau burners drive differ from a Blu Ray drive by lets you burn/copy files from your PC onto a disc?
3: Is external or internal the better choice? Or does it not matter?
4: Any rec. brands/models? I've read a lot of positive thinks about LG Blu Ray burners w/BDXL. Same with Pionner/Panasonic.
5: When choosing a Blu Ray drive I assume I want to look @ speeds of writing/burning?


Thanks everyone for helping answer all these ?'s for me over the last week. I have learned a lot from all of you.

Cheers
-Michael MN
 
First of all, choosing to have an optical drive or not is 100% up to you. you know what you need and what your situation is there so if you buy all your games via disk and not buying through Steam/Origin/whatever then you do need one. I probably differ from most here in that my main rig at home DOES have a drive so I can back up some disks I have.

So now to answer your questions:


'1: Can a Blu Ray drive also be used as a basic optical drive?

Simple answer is yes. Longer answer, a Blu Ray drive IS an optical drive. To my knowledge, all Blu Ray drives for a computer will read and CDs and DVDs and most that I've seen will burn those as well regardless if they can burn Blu Rays.

2: Does a Blu Rau burners drive differ from a Blu Ray drive by lets you burn/copy files from your PC onto a disc?

Depends on the OS. Windows 8 should let you burn natively without any third-party software however older versions would need a program to help you burn to the Blu Ray player. If you want to do this, you will need the drives capable of burning.

3: Is external or internal the better choice? Or does it not matter?

Personal choice here. I tend to not like anything external as the external interface is just one more thing to die on me.

4: Any rec. brands/models? I've read a lot of positive thinks about LG Blu Ray burners w/BDXL. Same with Pionner/Panasonic.

I have an LG reader that I'm very happy with, don't have any experiance with others.

5: When choosing a Blu Ray drive I assume I want to look @ speeds of writing/burning?

Generally, they should all be within the same speed range, even one that burns 1x or 2x faster won't be that big of a noticeable difference when burning a very large disk. While I rarely say this, you're best bet when choosing a drive is going to be the reviews of the drives in your price & feature range.
 
1 Yes if the manufacture specifies it is backward compatible. It's not safe to assume.
2 A burner makes discs. A Blu Ray drive also known as a player will just play pre burned discs.
3 I personally prefer internal. Less likely to get damaged or lost.
4 I love my LG. Quality is excellent and the price is right.
5 Yes and no. More yes than no. The faster you go burning a disc the more likely there will be errors creeping that render the disc useless. A moderate speed is good.

EDIT: I have to learn to type faster.
 
There's always uses for an optical drive like for archiving as well as playing/burning DVDs, BRs and CDs.

I have an Asus 24x DVDRW in my system for such cases like this.
 
There's always uses for an optical drive like for archiving as well as playing/burning DVDs, BRs and CDs.

I have an Asus 24x DVDRW in my system for such cases like this.

Absolutely, I agree, when you're building a desktop PC then it's certainly worth putting an optical drive into the machine for the relatively minimal extra expense!
 
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