DVD Drive or Bluray Drive?

[Sir Topham Hatt]

So after working out my old DVD drive is a IDE connection and the new motherboard doesn't even know what IDE is (no connector), I am looking at getting a new drive but I don't know what to get.

 

My first thought would be to future proof and get a Bluray drive.  Yet I don't know if I will ever use it.  I don't buy Bluray (I have similar to Netflix) and am happy backing up to my external HDD and a few DVDs.  The price of blank Bluray disks is also expensive.

 

Also, I guess a modern DVD drive would be SATA like modern hard disks?

 

What would you do and why?

[Astra.Xtreme]

As a third option, you could get something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/eForCity-USB-SATA-Cable-Adapter/dp/B001OOXBDO

 

Then you can just keep your IDE drive in the closet and connect it to your PC with this USB adapter when you need it.

 

This is the route I go since I hardly ever use the DVD drive.  More space in my case and less wires to manage this way.

[abecedarian paradoxious]

Get an external USB-IDE case and put the drive in that?

[theyarecomingforyou]

I wouldn't bother with an optical drive at all. I used to have a Blu-ray drive but found I never used it, so I removed it a couple of years ago in order to add an extra HDD.

[papercut2008uk]

Sata DVD writers are very cheap, ?15-?20 new, no point going with a Bluray drive if your not going to use it, the prices of them will drop also, so if you really wanted or needed one they would me more affordable in the future. 

[Crisp]

Blue-ray future proof? My PC has no optical drive at all, never use one :P

[helpifIcan]

The only reason I would get a BD is for the amount of data you can backup. BUT the cloud backup options keep this on the back burner.

[AJerman]

Well, Bluray recorder drives are about $75 and DVD recorder drives are what, $20 now? I guess there's more of a gap than I thought, but still, $75 isn't that bad unless you're on a tight budget. I'd tossed a bluray drive in my computer when I did a rebuild a few months ago. I can probably count the number of times I've used it on one hand, but for the price I like that it's there. I need to get some Blurays converted to digital though so I should be using it.

[neo1911]

No optical drives here and it's been 2 years. I don't miss them.