Blu-Ray Drives

The Bottom Line: The LaCie d2 Blu-ray burner offers good performance speeds, but it's still prohibitively expensive. Home users should wait for Blu-ray burners to drop in price and improve in performance.

Specs: BD-RE, 32x (CD) / 8x (DVD) / 2x (BD), 24x (CD) / 8x (DVD±R) / 4x (DVD±R DL) / 2x (BD-R) / 2x (BD-R DL), 16x (CD) / 6x (DVD-RW) / 8x (DVD+RW) / 2x (BD-RE) / 2x (BD-RE DL)

The Bottom Line: The Sony BWU-100A Blu-ray burner is still priced out of range for most users, but if you have $700 to spare, it's a good choice for its range of media support and acceptable task speeds.

Specs: BD-RE, 32x (CD) / 8x (DVD) / 2x (BD), 24x (CD) / 8x (DVD±R) / 4x (DVD±R DL) / 2x (BD-R), 16x (CD) / 6x (DVD-RW) / 8x (DVD+RW) / 5x (DVD-RAM) / 2x (BD-RE)

The Bottom Line: The first Blu-ray burner to hit the market, the Pioneer BDR-101A gives you 25GB of storage on a single disc and its actual write speeds nearly match its rated 2X spec. Still, it's a first-generation drive that's too expensive for anyone but professionals and enthusiasts working with HD video.

Specs: BD-RE, 8x (DVD) / 2x (BD), DVD:8x(±R),2x(-R DL),2.4x(+R DL)/BD:2x(-R), 4x (DVD-RW) / 8x (DVD+RW) / 2x (BD-RE)

Specs: BD-RE / HD DVD-ROM combo, 40x (CD) / 12x (DVD±R) / 8x (DVD±R DL) / 6x (BD-R) / 4.8x (BD-R DL) / 3x (HD DVD) / 3x (HD DVD DL), 40x (CD) / 16x (DVD±R) / 4x (DVD±R DL) / 6x (BD-R) / 4x (BD-R DL), 24x (CD) / 6x (DVD-RW) / 8x (DVD+RW) / 5x (DVD-RAM) / 2x (BD-RE) / 2x (BD-RE DL)

Specs: DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM / BD-ROM, 40x (CD) / 16x (DVD) / 8x (BD), 40x (CD) / 16x (DVD±R) / 4x (DVD±R DL), 24x (CD) / 6x (DVD-RW) / 8x (DVD+RW) / 5x (DVD-RAM)

Specs: BD-ROM, 8x (DVD) / 2x (BD)

Specs: DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM / BD-ROM, 32x (CD) / 8x (DVD) / 4x (BD)

Specs: BD-ROM, 24x (CD) / 8x (DVD) / 2x (BD)

Specs: BD-ROM / HD DVD-ROM combo, 48x (CD) / 16x (DVD) / 6x (BD), 48x (CD) / 16x (DVD±R) / 8x (DVD±R DL), 32x (CD) / 6x (DVD-RW) / 8x (DVD+RW) / 12x (DVD-RAM)

Specs: BD-RE, 40x (CD) / 16x (DVD) / 6x (BD), 40x (CD) / 16x (DVD±R) / 4x (DVD±R DL) / 6x (BD-R) / 4x (BD-R DL), 24x (CD) / 6x (DVD-RW) / 8x (DVD+RW) / 5x (DVD-RAM) / 2x (BD-RE) / 2x (BD-RE DL)