Compare the Best Optical Disc DrivesJune 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.

Cd Burner Prices

Cd burners range in price from £12 to £190 and in total we found prices for 53 cd burners. The average price of a new cd (re)writer is £46 and 80% of dvd rewriters are priced between £14 and £87. The cheapest cd burner that we found is the LiteOn IHAS122 at only £12, and the most expensive is the I-O Data BRDS16PX at £190.

Dvd Rewriter Brands - Price Range

The highest average cd rewriter price out of all brands is I-O Data cd writers with an average price of £64. I-O Data cd writers range in price from £0 to £190.

The second highest average dvd (re)writer price out of all brands is Pioneer cd writers with an average price of £60. Pioneer cd writers range in price from £23 to £100.

The average price of Hewlett Packard Enterprise cd rewriters is £55 which is the third highest average price of all cd (re)writer brands. Hewlett Packard Enterprise cd rewriters range in price from £0 to £110.

Dvd (Re)Writer Brands - Average Ratings

We have analysed 19 expert reviews and 4,687 user reviews for dvd writers and used this data to determine the average rating for each brand of cd burner.

Biggest Dvd Burner Retailers

The biggest dvd writer retailer by number of products currently for sale is SmartTeck. We found 29 current dvd writer offers from SmartTeck. The second biggest retailer is PC World Business with 5 offers. That means SmartTeck is over 5 times bigger than PC World Business when it comes to optical disc drives. Novatech is the third biggest retailer with 5 current offers.

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

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

That means that on a typical dvd writer costing £17 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.

The most common disc loading type amongst new dvd rewriters is tray. We found 115 dvd rewriters that are cd writers that have a tray loading. Slot is the second most popular disc loading type amongst new dvd rewriters. We found 29 dvd rewriters that are cd (re)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 73 cd rewriters that are internal cd rewriters, which makes this the most popular type amongst new cd rewriters. The second most common type amongst new cd writers is external. We found 53 cd writers that are external dvd burners.

Optical Drive Types

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

Amongst new cd writers, the most popular optical drive type is dvd. We found 117 cd writers that are dvd (re)writers that have a dvd Optical drive type. We found 26 optical disc drives that are dvd burners that have a blu-ray Optical drive type, making this the second most frequently found optical drive type amongst new optical disc drives.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for Cd Burners?

The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying cd burners. For each retailer it shows the total number of cd burners 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 SmartTeck. 2 of their cd burner prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

Proportion of Dvd Rewriters for Which Each Retailer is Cheapest?

Assessing how cheap each retailer is for dvd rewriters by counting the number of cheapest prices for that retailer, makes the retailers that offer the greatest number of dvd writer prices more likely to offer the greatest number of cheapest prices. The chart below considers the proportion of each retailer's dvd writer prices that are the cheapest compared to other retailers. The cheapest retailer that we found using this approach was SmartTeck. 6.9% of their cd (re)writer prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.