Pioneer ships first BDXL optical drive, priced at $200

[Emil]

Pioneer has announced its new BDXL internal Blu-ray disc drive, the Pioneer BDR-206MBK. The BDR-206MBK is the first drive that can read and write using the new multi-layer recordable Blu-ray Disc format: BDXL integrates additional layers to traditional Blu-ray discs to oferr up to 128GB of storage capacity on a quadruple layer disc. The $200 drive is currently available for purchase at Fry's Electronics and at PioneerElectronics.com.

The BDR-206MBK drive allows users to read and write BD-R XL and BD-RE XL triple layer (100GB) and BD-R XL quadruple layer (128GB) discs. The drive can also play and record on virtually all disc formats including CD, DVD, and Blu-ray. To play 3D video, additional equipment, such as a 3D capable monitor that supports Windows7 3D, is required. The drive does, however, come bundled with CyberLink software to support BDXL and for a limited time, Pioneer is including BD-R XL 100GB media for free with each drive.

The BDR-206MBK also enhances recording accuracy and further limits artificial noise for quality playback using Pioneer's proprietary technologies. Its Limit Equalizer technology improves RF signals generated when reading data from Blu-ray discs and enables improved playback capability. The new airtight structure helps keep the drive quiet and protects against contaminants and dust particles while the Disc Vibration Stabilizer feature helps protect the disc from warping during the writing process.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/41593-pioneer-ships-first-bdxl-optical-drive-priced-at-200.html

 

[lawfer]

Even though a simple Google search would do, I think you should have also talked about the actual write speed of the new drive. People immediately assume that the more layers, and the bigger the disk space, the longer is the writing and/or erasing time.

 

[gwailo247]

Those disks cost between $75 and $100 each! Cheapest was 3 disks for $100 by Sharp.

The price of the drive itself is not that bad, but its cheaper to buy a hard drive fill it up with data, and put it in a drawer.

 

[lawfer]

gwailo247 said:
Those disks cost between $75 and $100 each! Cheapest was 3 disks for $100 by Sharp.

The price of the drive itself is not that bad, but its cheaper to buy a hard drive fill it up with data, and put it in a drawer.

Indeed. I can get a 1TB drive for 80 bucks!

 

[madboyv1]

I agree with gwailo247 with the comment about the drive price. Back when Bluray burners came out, they were 2-3 times that price. The discs are atrocious however. =/

To those that have commented and will comment about HDDs as an alternative: Hard drives and disc media provide similar functions but are often used for two different things, at least at an commercial/enterprise level. Physical media such as CD/DVD/BDR and even Tape drives are used for offline archival, where hard drives are used more for live copy and intermediate storage. The advantage is that the physical media is just that, the media. It is slightly more portable per disc, and is not limited to one reading apparatus. Hard drives on the other hand are both the reader and the media, and since most large capacity drives are mechanical, they are by design going to fail mechanically, and without a backup (often physical media or another HDD which can be dangerous) or some other kind of redundancy they become single points of failure.

Example: I used to work for a media group, and I made DVD backups of everything while I was there. When I left, they copied all my DVDs on to hard drives and kept it as a live backup. Afterwords a blotched server software upgrade killed a number of drives, along with large portions of data that had been added after my time there.

The shortsight of not using RAID, or at least having more than one copy makes me very glad that I was not there to witness such a failure.

 

[gwailo247]

If you're using something as backup, what is the danger of putting it all on a drive and then unplugging the drive and putting it in a drawer?

If the drive is unplugged, then nothing is moving. Hard drives don't fail all that often, so I would expect that if you just back up the data and leave it alone, it should be as safe as burning it on a disk?

Or are there reasons why that would not be a good way to archive?

 

[madboyv1]

If you're using something as backup, what is the danger of putting it all on a drive and then unplugging the drive and putting it in a drawer?

If the drive is unplugged, then nothing is moving. Hard drives don't fail all that often, so I would expect that if you just back up the data and leave it alone, it should be as safe as burning it on a disk?

Or are there reasons why that would not be a good way to archive?

While I myself have done what you have suggested, there are some issues with doing so.

- If it is an internal drive, then it requires the drive to be plugged back into the system in some way. Connecting and disconnecting drives are electronically dangerous, even though the likelyhood of something happening is very slim. The same goes for external drives, though they are better protected.
- The read/write heads can impact/rest on the platters if the arresting mechanism fails/wears out from lack of use, especially when the drive is being moved.
- Hard drives while off are still affected by strong magnetic events (your average refrigerator magnet probably won't do anything mind you), where the data is essentially etched/burned into the recording layer for a disc, so they are usually not affected.

There was a couple more points I had ready back when I figured someone would ask this, but I can't remember. =)

If people stored their drives in magnetically shielded (antistatic bags work to a considerable degree and soft padded containers (being waterproof helps assuming the container is not changing locations air pressure wise), a number of issues would be null and void, but most people do as you say, unplug it and putting it in their desk/file cabinet. On the otherhand, HDDs are a LOT tougher than I make them out to be, but you never know when that piece of straw ends up breaking the camel's back is going to happen.

 

[Micro Watt]

Theres a spelling error. you wrote:

"BDXL integrates additional layers to traditional Blu-ray discs to oferr up to 128GB ".

you said oferr instead of offer

 

[Guest]

If you just stick a hard drive in a drawer, after some years the bearings have problems because they've not been used - the lubrication dries up, sticks or something. Nothing wrong with the drive itself - it just won't work. They can be repaired at that stage, but it does cost. That is, assuming the drive isn't so far out of date that HDDs have gone the way if the 5 1/4" floppy, and parts are still available.

If you're going to take that route, I'd put the drive in a sealed bag, in a cool and constant temperatured environment, and fire it up at least once a year, have a redundant offsite backup (having 2 copies in the same place doesn't help if there's a fire) and preferably a backup on a different medium.

Flash drives could be better - but remember to completely rewrite the information every few years because of charge leakage - even the best only last 5-10 years.