Is a DVD drive worth it in additional to a BD drive?

[Teilz]

Sorry, not sure if this is the right place to ask this but was just wondering if it's worth getting just a regular DVD drive too.

I have a lot of DVDs in addition to blu-rays and UHDs and was thinking maybe it's worth getting just a regular DVD drive for those to save some wear and tear on the BD drive as DVD drives still seem a bit more readily available.

Do people usually do this?

Also, any advice on which would be a good one to get? Pioneers seem to be the agreed upon best for BD drives, is the same true for DVD drives? Or does brand not matter much with these?

[DukeFleed]

That's exactly what I do. To preserve my Pioneer Blu-ray burner, when I rip DVDs I use an internal LG SATA DVD burner (recovered from my old PC) that I connect with a USB-SATA adapter (the same one I use for the Blu-ray burner when I connect it to my PC). I recommend an LG brand.

[kaysee]

Yes, good plan. If you deal with problematic optical discs, it is worthwhile to have a variety of optical drives. Some people endlessly recommend Pioneer drives. I recommend having a variety of brands and models handy. With some optical discs, my old LG drive would have trouble reading them but my Pioneer could read them perfectly. OR: the other way around, with the Pioneer not able to mount a disc that the LG could read perfectly. The Pioneer is not always the best.

In any case, offloading mechanical wear from a blu-ray drive to a cheaper and more readily obtainable DVD-only drive is a good idea. If the blue laser in your blu-ray drive wears out, then the drive is still usable as a DVD/CD drive.

[ruddygodly]

For most people, no—a separate DVD drive isn't necessary. Blu-ray drives are built to handle DVDs, and reading DVDs causes very little wear.

If you want a backup or plan to rip a large DVD collection, a dedicated DVD drive can be worthwhile.

For DVD drives, LG and ASUS offer great value, while Pioneer is also reliable but usually costs more. Brand matters less for DVD drives than for Blu-ray drives.

[AstralWanderer]

A DVD drive can offer features not present in BluRay players - I've not come across any BluRays offering LightScribe for example.

I would like to ask anyone with experience here, what exactly they mean by Blu-Ray lasers "wearing out"? The very earliest LaserDisc players had gas-powered lasers which were more fragile and subject to failure, but current players shouldn't be any less resilient than DVDs from 10-20 years ago, or CD players from the 1980-90s, and there haven't been reports of widespread failure there (indeed, the CD/DVD players I've had for the last 20 years are still working fine).

...If the blue laser in your blu-ray drive wears out, then the drive is still usable as a DVD/CD drive.

On top of this, if a laser did "wear out" then surely that would mean the Blu-Ray player being completely inoperable? (virtually all have just one laser, with separate lenses for different media types).