Why are PC Blu-Ray drives so scarce and expensive?

[Rocket-Boy]

First thing I did was wipe Windoze 8 and install Windows 7.
Used DVDFab Decrypter.

Normally I would say that is a good idea, my new HP didnt have windows 7 drivers and I wasnt going to track down compatible drivers for everything so I just got used to windows 8. Since then I have moved my home pc to windows 8 too and Im really enjoying it.

 

[RichardG]

Maybe there wasn't enough demand for them to keep them in stock! I barely ever use Blu-ray and finding notebooks that have Blu-ray are scarce finding as well or whoever owns the patent doesn't want the technology to be in PCs any more.

Like take Blu-ray dvd players the models available in the market haven't changed much over the past 2 years. My current player is still available at the retailer.

 

[Space_Chief]

I have no idea how reliable BD-R media is but several of my old DVD-R backup discs are now unreadable so I just don't trust optical media anymore. For critical/important/sentimental data, a primary HDD with a secondary HDD as backup is the way to go.

I understand that the life expectancy of data on good quality BD stored well should outlast the life expectancy of data stored on magnetic media. It's more resilient if stored well. You should of course go for good quality media, best being Taiyo Yuden and be careful about storage and the sort of magic marker you use on the disk.

http://www.zdnet.com/tech-guide-storage-media-lifespans-1120269043/