Hi All,

I really would like to buy an external Blu-Ray burner for my backups
but bizarrely (it seems to me) nearly every drive out there
at the moment is internal - what gives? Even Sony and Philips
don't seen to have bothered releasing one yet - does anyone
know of any out there? Anyone seen any release dates?

Seems a little odd to me...not everyone has a desktop, I prefer
a laptop!

Cheers,

Martin

Are you kidding me?

External Blu-Ray drives will cost twice as much as an Internal Blu-Ray drive. So unless you want to fork out £1000 for a drive that will be sluggish and obsolete in 3-4 years time, I'd suggest you keep your money and wait for the price tag for Blu-Ray drives and media to drop.

But then again, if you've got money to burn then go for it.

@mart9802, welcome to cdfreaks.

I think it will be much cheaper if you buy an internal blu-ray drive and put it in an external casing. I will test one of my blu-ray drives in a Prolific chipset based soon and will let you know.

In the meantime, here are some external blu-ray but basically it is internal in an external case.

Lacie d2 Blu-ray drive: http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10867
IO Data BRD-UM2/U: http://www.iodata.com/usa/products/p...Id=BRD-UM2%2FU
Also Lite-On LX-2B1U: http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/25/l...lu-ray-writer/

@soneman: In the US, pricetag is down from US$1000 to US$750 and now in the range of US$470-ish:

US$473 Lite-On LH-2B1S: http://www.buy.com/retail/Product.asp?sku=203452187
US$499 Philips SPD7000: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827248005

I think it is becoming more affordable for some, if not many, people or companies who need it to backup larger data, or just playback movies or backup hi-def movies.

Thanks guys - very useful - I guess I just don't quite get why
adding a plastic case to a drive adds so much to the price...
or am I missing something here?

Cheers,

Mart