LaCie doubles external d2 Blu-ray burn speed to 4x

Not like 4x Blu-ray burners are anything special, but if you've got a special place in your heart for anything designed by Neil Poulton, this one's for you. LaCie has just announced that it's doubling the burn speed of its tried-and-true d2 external writer, enabling owners to toast BD-Rs at 4x. It'll also handle BD-REs (2x), DVD±RW DLs and CD±RWs, and it can interface with your computer via USB 2.0 or FireWire 400. The pain? $649.99 -- and that's before you go shopping for optical media.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

[Jherez @ May 28th 2008 3:03PM]

Damn! News sure is coming fast today.

[gabe @ May 28th 2008 3:03PM]

any luck burning ps3 backups?

[MR @ May 28th 2008 3:14PM]

Move the dot from that price tag 1 digit to the left and we'll talk again.

[JJV @ May 28th 2008 3:22PM]

That would be equally hard. because 64.999$ is kinda hard to get change for, you would have to cut up a cent coin into tens. it would be complicated

[Starnerf @ May 28th 2008 3:31PM]

Gas stations don't seem to have a problem with it.

[JJV @ May 28th 2008 3:33PM]

yeah i know. they must have some complex system 0.o we should adapt it and make it the Engadget Blu Ray buying thing system.

EBRBTS
yesssss

[retro77 @ May 28th 2008 3:17PM]

I'll wait until they are 48x.

[Gordon Page @ May 28th 2008 3:28PM]

Exactly, burning 50 gigs at 4x would be awful.

[Andrew @ May 30th 2008 11:54PM]

4x READ SPEED. it is burning at 4 times the native read speed for the format!

Look at the data rate for a 1x blu-ray drive and a 1x CD drive. Bluray reads data inherently faster.

Read mechanism 405 nm laser:
1× at 36 Mbit/s
2× at 72 Mbit/s
4× at 144 Mbit/s
6× at 216 Mbit/s
12× at 432 Mbit/s

1x is just under 5MB/S

Meaning 4x is...

To compare, 1x CD-ROM is 150KB/s

[Blaine Oliver @ May 28th 2008 3:17PM]

How many terrabyte hardrives could i buy for this? Honestly, these are so not worth it.

[Joshua.JWilliams @ May 28th 2008 3:31PM]

The sad thing is that obviously in a few years the prices of these things will come down in price so drastically. I remember my first CD burner, 2X - internal. I think it was $150- 200 or something. That was a long, long, time before MP3 players or external storage and my goal was just creating my own mix cds. Ahhh ... memories.

Like "Blaine Oilver" stated, I'd much rather have a terrabyte hard drive. Not worth the money at all.

[Doug_Parks @ May 28th 2008 3:55PM]

Aren't the discs like $25.00? Why do people need these again?

[TJ @ May 28th 2008 4:30PM]

$620 at Safe Harbor Computers...im in!

[Mote @ May 28th 2008 6:28PM]

Meh.

[DANIEL @ May 28th 2008 6:54PM]

Can I use this on my 24" 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo IMAC?

[ITRanger @ May 29th 2008 9:42AM]

Ah ... bliss. I can now sit back and enjoy the fruits of a single standard. This looks entirely purchasable, as opposed to being overlooked because of the standard wars.

Nice product!