On 20/08/15 06:53 AM, ken wrote:
One of the build options for a laptop I'm looking at buying is DVD vs Blu-Ray. I've never used Blue-ray before, so is there some compelling reason, as a Linux guy, to want to get Blu-ray?
The decision isn't that simple. As others have pointed out, the "no optical drive" option also needs to be considered.
Another point to consider is "does the Blu-Ray drive support the new m-discs? (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC)" Not all of them do.
M-Disc's big selling feature is long-term stability, making it good for archiving or other long-term storage uses.
All optical discs have limited capacity compared with today's hard drives and SSDs. However the optical drive offers essentially unlimited capacity by swapping discs. The media is generally mechanically stable and with M-Discs is also chemically stable so it's not a simple case of "which is better, hard drive or optical" but rather which one suits your purposes better?
I'm still a fan of optical media for archiving so I've been using Blu-Ray for several years now. At 25G per disc, I can store multiple years of work on one disc. However as anyone with a PVR will attest, 25G is not sufficient for backing up a media library. Still, putting precious family videos on optical material is a reasonable precaution.
