Compare the Best Optical Disc DrivesMarch 2021

Optical disk drives cover a wide range of internal and external devices meant to both read and write a variety of removable media. This means they can be used to both read data from discs (i.e - playing a movie DVD or Blu Ray) and also writing or ‘burning’ data (i.e - creating a music CD from individual mp3s, or permanently writing files to a disk for distribution).

While most computers used to house CD and DVD drives as standard, drastically smaller devices and a move towards cloud-based streaming mean that disc drives are being used less and less. Indeed many modern laptops and desktops no longer contain a disc drive at all.

This means that even though it is legacy tech, it’s still worth keeping a drive handy for those times you want to read the data from an old DVD, burn a disc for a friend, or watch a movie when you don’t have access to Netflix. This guide will explain the major points of consideration when choosing an optical disk drive.

Read/Write Speedas

Finally, read & write speeds measure how quickly data can be written from & to the disc. This is measures in bytes per second - the higher the speed, the faster large files (such as movies) will be burnt to the disc, or read from the drive. The read-write speeds are also affected by the USB version supported - USB 3.0 supported drives allow far higher transfer rates than USB 2 drives, so it is worth seeking out the newest drive you can for the fastest data transfer speeds.

Dvd Writer Prices

The price range of dvd burners is from £11 to £212 and in total we found prices for 58 dvd burners. A new cd (re)writer costs on average £51 and 80% of dvd burners are priced between £15 and £85. The cheapest optical disc drive that we found is the Asus DRW24D5MT at only £11, and the most expensive is the Asus SDRW-S1 LITE at £212.

Dvd Rewriter Brands - Price Range

The highest average dvd writer price out of all brands is Verbatim cd writers with an average price of £102. Verbatim cd writers range in price from £26 to £192.

The average price of Intel dvd writers is £74 which is the second highest average price of all cd writer brands. Intel dvd writers start at £74 and their most expensive cd writer costs £74.

I-O Data dvd (re)writers range in price from £0 to £190, and the third highest average dvd burner price out of all brands is I-O Data dvd (re)writers with an average price of £64.

Cd Burner Brands - Average Ratings

We have evaluated 22 expert reviews and 3,437 user reviews for optical disc drives and used this data to evaluate the average rating for each brand of cd writer.

Biggest Dvd Burner Retailers

We found 44 current offers for cd writers from Amazon UK making it the biggest cd (re)writer retailer. That is more than twice as big as the second biggest retailer, SmartTeck for whom we found 21 current offers for cd writers. The third biggest retailer is shop4world with 6 current cd (re)writer offers.

How Fast Do Dvd (Re)Writer Prices Drop After Release?

On average, in the first 6 months after release, dvd burners drop in price by 10%.

That means that on a typical cd burner costing £21 you could save on average £2 by waiting 6 months before buying.

Disc Loading Types

The disc loading type refers to the mechanism by which the optical disc is loaded into the drive. Normally this is by placing the disc in a tray or by inserting it into a slot.

Tray is the most common disc loading type amongst new cd burners. We found 113 cd burners that are cd burners that have a tray loading. We found 30 dvd writers that are dvd burners that have a slot loading, making this the second most common disc loading type amongst new dvd writers.

Type

Type denotes whether the disc drive is meant to be placed internally into a computer, or used externally via USB.

The most frequently found type amongst new cd rewriters is internal. We found 83 cd rewriters that are internal cd writers. We found 52 dvd (re)writers that are external dvd burners, making external the second most frequently found type amongst new dvd (re)writers.

Optical Drive Types

The drive type denotes what type of disc (CD, DVD,etc) the drive is capable of reading.

We found 117 dvd writers that are cd rewriters that have a dvd Optical drive type, which makes this the most popular optical drive type amongst new dvd writers. Blu-ray is the second most frequently found optical drive type amongst new dvd rewriters. We found 26 dvd rewriters that are dvd burners that have a blu-ray Optical drive type.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for Dvd Writers?

The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying cd (re)writers. For each retailer it shows the total number of cd (re)writers where they currently have a market leading price. The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying cd rewriters. For each retailer we took all of their prices and looked at what proportion of those prices where the cheapest on the market. The cheapest retailer that we found was Amazon UK. 21 of their cd rewriter prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

Proportion of Dvd Burners for Which Each Retailer is Cheapest?

Assessing how cheap each retailer is for cd writers by counting the number of cheapest prices for that retailer, makes the retailers that offer the greatest number of dvd burner prices more likely to offer the greatest number of cheapest prices. The chart below considers the proportion of each retailer's dvd burner prices that are the cheapest compared to other retailers. The cheapest retailer that we found using this approach was Amazon UK. 47.7% of their cd rewriter prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.