Is this a good optical drive?

[NiteHood]

This says it's a Blu-ray burner, but will it also be able to read Blu-rays? That might seem like a dumb question, but I would hate to buy it figure out it can only write to them. I'm assuming that if it can write to Blu-rays, it can also write to DVDs and CDs as well. Is that right? Also, if I buy windows on a disc, will this be able to load it onto my SSD?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136269

[ComeT]

Are you sure that you really need a blu-ray and if an optical drive at all?

[DarkBlade2117]

As stated above are you sure you even need a blu-ray optical drive? Also Windows 10 can be bought on a USB Stick and even if you buy it online like off a website such as reddit or G2A you can easily download the windows Installation Software that you need to use when installing Windows.

[Arc_Jester]

Yes, it reads Blu-rays but why do you need one in the first place?

[boarder2k7]

Yes, all burners also read.

Additionally, all drives read everything under their format, so Bluray > DVD > CD

You'll have no trouble with loafing Windows with it either.

I know it isn't "cool" anymore but I prefer having an optical drive since tons of media still comes on disks. It's still the most cost effective distribution method by far.

[Arc_Jester]

-snip-.

Can you give examples of the "tons of media" that come on disks that is actually useful?

[boarder2k7]

Can you give examples of the "tons of media" that comes on disks that is actually useful?

Well considering the average Internet speed in the US is still only 11.9 Mb/s, for a large number of people it's literally every kind of media that is more useful on disk.

You have to remember that for the average to be 12 when a lot of high speed connections are 60+ that means a huge number of people are in the 5Mb/s range. Additionally lots of people live in areas serviced by satellite, cellular, or other metered access types who cannot afford to use 10 GB of their monthly cap to pull down a game or movie.

It can also be argued that the quality of a movie off of a blu ray disk is higher than a streamed copy, and CD audio is higher quality than a downloaded MP3.

Average Speed Source: http://www.networkworld.com/article/2959544/lan-wan/u-s-internet-connection-speeds-still-lag-behind-other-developed-nations.html

Edit: I'll also add that even if we postulate that everything from here on out doesn't need a physical disk, it still isn't unreasonable to want to access things from 3 years ago that didn't have a diskless option.

[Arc_Jester]

-snip-

When I said useful I meant to a PC, sure PCs can play CDs and DVDs but most people have dedicated devices for those types of media but other than that optical drives serve no purpose since things like drivers and software will be downloaded anyway in order to get the latest version, drivers for legacy devices can easily be found online and any OS can be installed from a USB stick.

 

P.S. i didn't know the average internet speed in the US was so low 

[ComeT]

When I said useful I meant to a PC, sure PCs can play CDs and DVDs but most people have dedicated devices for those types of media but other than that optical drives serve no purpose since things like drivers and software will be downloaded anyway in order to get the latest version, drivers for legacy devices can easily be found online and windows could be installed from a USB stick.

 

P.S. i didn't know the average internet speed in the US was so low 

lol

My internet speed is 8MB/s but it still don't use disks...

[boarder2k7]

When I said useful I meant to a PC, sure PCs can play CDs and DVDs but most people have dedicated devices for those types of media but other than that optical drives serve no purpose since things like drivers and software will be downloaded anyway in order to get the latest version, drivers for legacy devices can easily be found online and any OS can be installed from a USB stick.

P.S. i didn't know the average internet speed in the US was so low

Again it comes down to connection types. On a slow or metered connection the smart move is to load a game, or other software off a disk, then download the patch/update rather than pulling down the whole thing. This won't matter for drivers where you want the new ones and there isn't a patch, but for something like a Windows install, it's much friendlier to load 4 GB off a DVD then download the updates. (If you have it on a USB stick then sure you could of course use that instead)

The other thing to think about us connection utility. Even if someone's slow connection is not data capped, downloading a huge file instead of just the patch will hog the entire network for a long time, rendering other devices useless, or take so long it isn't worth it.

Yeah our Internet access as a country is pretty awful. For curiosity's sake, to hit the national average numbers a person connecting at 60 Mb takes 5 way down at only 2 Mb to offset it. Every person with Google fiber at 1000 Mb takes 100 at 2 Mb to average back out to 11.9 Mb

lol

My internet speed is 8MB/s but it still don't use disks...

You're making the MB/Mb mistake. 8 MB/s is 64 Mb/s so your connection speed is way faster than average, and much faster than the connection types I'm talking about.

[handruin]

Can you give examples of the "tons of media" that come on disks that is actually useful?

 

I own two of the exact drives the OP is asking about and they work great.  The types of media I use them for is archiving my large library of Blu-ray movies.  This is the only way I know of getting a Blu-ray into my NAS.  :-)

[ComeT]

Again it comes down to connection types. On a slow or metered connection the smart move is to load a game, or other software off a disk, then download the patch/update rather than pulling down the whole thing. This won't matter for drivers where you want the new ones and there isn't a patch, but for something like a Windows install, it's much friendlier to load 4 GB off a DVD then download the updates. (If you have it on a USB stick then sure you could of course use that instead)

The other thing to think about us connection utility. Even if someone's slow connection is not data capped, downloading a huge file instead of just the patch will hog the entire network for a long time, rendering other devices useless, or take so long it isn't worth it.

Yeah our Internet access as a country is pretty awful. For curiosity's sake, to hit the national average numbers a person connecting at 60 Mb takes 5 way down at only 2 Mb to offset it. Every person with Google fiber at 1000 Mb takes 100 at 2 Mb to average back out to 11.9 Mb

You're making the MB/Mb mistake. 8 MB/s is 64 Mb/s so your connection speed is way faster than average, and much faster than the connection types I'm talking about.

I'm meaning 8 Megabit/s... Do you mean something else?

[Arc_Jester]

I'm meaning 8 Megabit/s... Do you mean something else?

MB/s= Megabytes per second and Mb/s= Megabits per second, you typed MB/s instead of Mb/s.

[ComeT]

MB/s= Megabytes per second and Mb/s= Megabits per second, you typed MB/s instead...

Wow. Very different. Such fail.