Compare the Best Optical Disc DrivesJanuary 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 Rewriter Prices

Dvd rewriters range in price from £11 to £190 and in total we found prices for 54 dvd rewriters. On average, a new cd rewriter costs £47 and 80% of cd rewriters are priced between £14 and £87. The most expensive dvd writer that we found is the I-O Data BRDS16PX at £190, and the cheapest is the Asus DRW24D5MT at only £11.

Cd Burner Brands - Price Range

Intel optical disc drives range in price from £75 to £75, and the average price of Intel optical disc drives is £75 which is the highest average price of all optical disc drive brands.

I-O Data optical disc drives range in price from £0 to £190, and the second highest average dvd rewriter price out of all brands is I-O Data optical disc drives with an average price of £64.

Pioneer optical disc drives start at £27 and their most expensive dvd burner costs £100. The third highest average dvd burner price out of all brands is Pioneer optical disc drives with an average price of £63.

Dvd (Re)Writer Brands - Average Ratings

We have checked 22 expert reviews and 3,437 user reviews for cd burners and used these reviews to determine the average rating for each brand of dvd (re)writer.

Biggest Dvd (Re)Writer Retailers

The biggest cd (re)writer retailer by number of products currently for sale is Amazon UK. We found 49 current cd (re)writer offers from Amazon UK. The second biggest retailer is SmartTeck with 24 offers. That means Amazon UK is more than twice as big as SmartTeck when it comes to dvd rewriters. Raysan and Carter is the third biggest retailer with 10 current offers.

How Fast Do Cd Rewriter Prices Drop After Release?

New cd burners drop in price by an average of 10% in the first 6 months after they were first released.

A typical new dvd rewriter costs on average £18. By waiting 6 months before buying you could save on average £2.

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 frequently found disc loading type amongst new cd burners. We found 113 cd burners that are dvd burners that have a tray loading. We found 30 dvd (re)writers that are cd writers that have a slot loading, making slot the second most frequently found disc loading type amongst new dvd (re)writers.

Type

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

Internal is the most frequently found type amongst new dvd rewriters. We found 83 dvd rewriters that are internal cd rewriters. We found 52 cd writers that are external cd writers, making external the second most common type amongst new cd 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 rewriters that are cd burners that have a dvd Optical drive type, which makes this the most popular optical drive type amongst new dvd rewriters. We found 26 optical disc drives that are cd rewriters that have a blu-ray Optical drive type, making blu-ray the second most frequently found optical drive type amongst new optical disc drives.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for Cd Rewriters?

The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying cd rewriters. For each retailer it shows the total number of cd rewriters where they currently have a market leading price. The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying cd writers. 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. 24 of their optical disc drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

Proportion of Cd (Re)Writers for Which Each Retailer is Cheapest?

Assessing how cheap each retailer is for dvd (re)writers by counting the number of cheapest prices for that retailer, makes the retailers that offer the greatest number of dvd rewriter prices more likely to offer the greatest number of cheapest prices. The chart below considers the proportion of each retailer's dvd rewriter prices that are the cheapest compared to other retailers. The cheapest retailer that we found using this approach was Amazon UK. 49% of their dvd (re)writer prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.