Sony Announces External 100 GB Blu-ray Burner

Would've been nice if they simply used a USB 3.0 port. The standard supports higher Wattage and probably could've powered this drive off a single connection.

It can probably be powered off a single USB 2.0 Power port *The red ones*

ZOMG, BLURAY!!!11

... you guys still use this garbage?

Now if only BD-R XL discs weren't $50+ per disc this would actually make for a viable long-term backup solution over regular magnetic media, which in theory should reliably retain recorded data for as long as the organic dye-layer on discs would, depending on the quality of the dye.

I'm still waiting for that mDisc format which etches the data pits onto an inorganic composite layer, quite literally setting it in stone.

4x(16 min) for BD-R XL ? Holy Shit that's super fast. It's almost writing at 6-7 GB data per min.
At highest speed, USB 2.0 can spit out the data at 480Mbps = 60MBps. And two of them means 120MBps. So 120 x 60 = 7GB (that's double of USB controller's pick bandwidth).
So writing at that speed is not possible unless you plug USB cables to separate USB controllers. This is certainly not viable for laptops.

BD XL for the PS4.

I really wonder who will be using this other than Pirates.....

Because Pirates are going to spend all the money they saved by buying a BD XL disk.

I wonder how much time does a 100gb Blu-ray disc takes to burn?

Probably true but not that many laptops and other portable equipment has USB 3 ports, yet. So a Y-power is probably a good idea for Sony for the burner to be viable for as large a market segment as possible.

+1
singe usb 3.0 would have been better than dual usb 2.0.
for dual connection, may be an esata/usb 3.0 port and a power connector.

what is that certain 'entertainment' industry doing? they and playstation lowered the price of dvd. ps3 failed to lower blu-ray price(internet didn't help either ), may be they can help blu ray more than ps3 do.

now, personally, i perfer to save things according to category, if it cant fit on 1 dvd, id go 2, if it needs 4+ discs i would use a blu ray, if it would be less than 1gb, id rather store it on a disc, than also store it on a flash drive or hdd, just for ease of use.

but a non pirate use, and by pirate, i mean download form the internet, not ripping your own media.

i can see large backups of home videos, as those older tape based camcorders had about 15gb per tape (i think mini dv)
i can also see backing up your dvd colection to bluray, something very important to a parent
i can see backing up digital purchases
i can see backing up your games collection
i can also see backing up video you take in general
and depending on camera mp size, backing that up en mass too.

the average consumer does have a use for 100gb discs.

The article suggests 4x writing speed, which is approx 16 mins only. Refer to my earlier post.

My laptop didn't come with USB 3.0, but I got an expresscard 54 that has 2 USB 3.0 ports for about $15 shipped! It works great.
I agree, they really should have just gone with a USB 3 interface

How long until Sony releases an internal SATA III version?

Also I'm glad that the price is not outrageous like when BD drives started even when it has 4 times the capacity of "regular" BD media. (or twice as much as a double layer BD media disk)

1Terabyte platters are being produced now. I seen a 4 TB drive on sale for $190. I personally feel that the BD-R XL disc are not cost effective. A newer technology such as 3D/Holographic platters will need to come along starting out at 300-500 Gigs per platter to keep up with Hard Disk storage or just head to the clouds.

Thank you for a good article Douglas Perry, but bad luck about it not having USB 3.0 yet.

wait..pirates make money LOL

you forgot the #1 excuse that you can use it to put a copy of linux on it lol

Last I checked most reasonably priced laptops now come with at least 1 or 2 USB 3 ports, but if you are talking about the "poverty" market of cheap laptops selling for less than $799 then your right, they may not have it.

See Poverty laptops use back stock of old crap that Intel and AMD stopped producing years ago. A cheap basic latop will start around $800 and go up, which is still really "cheap" considering bleading edge desktop replacement laptops go for about $2500 +

is there even a disrto of Linux that would need a single layer bluray?

and they aren't excuses.

long trip, what do you want to carry around more, 4 or 5 blurays containing all your dvds (more or less given the person), or an exturnal hdd?

if you have kids, or even a little sibling to deal with, than having a back up of the easily destroyed discs is a must have, sadly consoles wont play burnt discs, obvious reasons, so i lost one game to little brother who cant take care of discs and parents who dont care that they cant, thats 80$ ill never see again.

backing up home movies, and storing them in more than one place, anyone who has been through a fire knows the reasons you do this, and also with older cameras taking the video off the camera, and than putting it over to a different source so you can reuse the same tape a few times.

anyone who records their games, and there are allot of them out there, could use it for archival purposes, as im sure many people would love that.

the fact that a pirate can put things on it, doesnt mean others cant have valid uses for it either.

Most USB2 ports cap out near 30MB/s, also the reason there are 2 is because one is for data, while the other is for power. 100000MB/30MB/s means aprox 55min per full disc. Surprisingly faster than I expected, but will still take some time.
I wonder which would cost more; The burner or the media?

They should have added two ports - one for 2.0 and one for 3.0. Oh wait I forgot they're Sony.

Its all great, but 4 years too late. HDD cheapness, USB sticks, USB/eSATA SSD wins it for me.

it like a PS3 only more expensive counting the reasonable computer.

I thought real pirates stored their media on OPCs.

Sounds like a good storage for a 4K quality videos. However, Blu Ray discs are still expensive compare to DVD. The prices are not dropping fast enough.

give it time, bluray still isn't standard in everything bought today, i dont believe dvd prices dropped untill they stopped selling stand alone vhs players




well lets go this way, about 20 dvds will fit on one of these blurays,
fire breaks out, you lose the dvds but bluray backup stored offsite

cost per disc will probably be about 40-50$ cost to replace dvd collection will probably be in the 2-400$ range.

hdds are cheaper, but they are also more susceptible to damage, at least magnetic, vibration and to a large extent impact. and even if part of the disc is damaged, you can still access it, unlike a hdd where it may cause a total failure.

BL are still no really viable solution for data storage, due to there price.

I bought a couple 3TB external drive for $129.
Until the disc prices go significantly lower, you're better off with mirroring your data on multiple HDs.