Compare the Best Optical Disc DrivesJune 2020

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.

Cd Burner Prices

The price range of dvd burners is from £12 to £116 and in total we found prices for 62 dvd burners. The average price of a new dvd rewriter is £44 and 80% of cd rewriters are priced between £15 and £84. The most expensive dvd (re)writer that we found is the Asus SDRW-S1 LITE at £116, and the cheapest is the LiteOn IHAS122 at only £12.

Dvd Rewriter Brands - Price Range

Intel dvd rewriters start at £84 and their most expensive cd rewriter costs £84. The highest average cd rewriter price out of all brands is Intel dvd rewriters with an average price of £84.

The average price of Pioneer dvd (re)writers is £60 which is the second highest average price of all optical disc drive brands. Pioneer dvd (re)writers start at £20 and their most expensive optical disc drive costs £100.

The third highest average dvd rewriter price out of all brands is Verbatim dvd rewriters with an average price of £40. Verbatim dvd rewriters range in price from £0 to £96.

Dvd Writer Brands - Average Ratings

We have checked 21 expert reviews and 3,428 user reviews for cd burners and used these reviews to evaluate the average rating for each brand of optical disc drive.

Biggest Dvd Rewriter Retailers

The biggest dvd writer retailer by number of products currently for sale is Novatech. We found 6 current dvd writer offers from Novatech. The second biggest retailer is Amazon UK with 1 offers. That means Novatech is over 6 times bigger than Amazon UK when it comes to dvd (re)writers. John Lewis is the third biggest retailer with 1 current offers.

How Fast Do Cd Burner Prices Drop After Release?

On average optical disc drives drop in price by 10% in the first 6 months after release.

That means that on a typical cd writer costing £20 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 popular disc loading type amongst new dvd writers. We found 114 dvd writers that are cd burners that have a tray loading. The second most common disc loading type amongst new dvd writers is slot. We found 29 dvd writers that are dvd writers that have a slot loading.

Type

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

We found 83 cd writers that are internal cd burners, which makes this the most popular type amongst new cd writers. We found 52 dvd burners that are external dvd burners, making this the second most popular type amongst new dvd burners.

Optical Drive Types

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

We found 116 dvd writers that are dvd burners that have a dvd Optical drive type, which makes this the most common optical drive type amongst new dvd writers. We found 27 dvd (re)writers that are dvd burners that have a blu-ray Optical drive type, making this the second most popular optical drive type amongst new dvd (re)writers.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for Dvd (Re)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 dvd (re)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 Novatech. 2 of their cd rewriter prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

Proportion of Cd Writers for Which Each Retailer is Cheapest?

Assessing how cheap each retailer is for cd burners 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 Novatech. 33.3% of their dvd writer prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.