DVD and Blu-ray drives from Future Shop
Navigating the details to find the right drive.
Whether you’re shopping for a new optical drive because your current one is busted or you’re in the market for a new computer that doesn’t come with a drive, it’s good to know what kinds of DVD and Blu-ray drives are available on the market and which one will suit your needs.
Terms to know about drives.
First off, something to keep in mind when you’ re reading drive descriptions is that the term “optical drive” is just another way of referring to DVD and Blu-ray drives. The term optical drive comes from the fact that it uses lasers for reading and writing data. Some simple terminology that is important to understand is that “reading” is the same as “playing” a disc and “writing” is the same as “burning” to a disc.
Internal and external options.
You can buy a new computer that includes an internal drive or a one without a drive, such an Ultrabook, which means you’ll have to purchase an external option. Internal models are faster due to being installed inside your computer or laptop, but the slower external models are portable and connectable through USB or other types of connectors.
There are similarities and differences to consider.
DVD and Blu-ray drives can both be used for watching and burning discs for movies as well as listening to music and burning your CDs for music. The drives can also be used for transferring data between computers and backing up your files. Blu-ray drives have an advantage because they read and write to DVDs, CDs, and Blu-ray Discs while DVD drives are limited to DVDs and CDs. Also, the storage capacity of a Blu-ray Disc is larger than a DVDs disc, and can be used to store high definition (HD) videos. The big advantage for DVD drives is that they’re less expensive than their counterpart.