[Prime] LG WH16NS40 5.25" Internal SATA 16x Blu-Ray Disc Rewriter $81.45 Delivered @ Amazon US via AU

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For those still into blu-ray discs I present the legendary LG WH16NS40.

Price History at C CamelCamelCamel.
This is part of Amazon Prime Day sale for 2024

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Comments

  • +16

    I still remember when the first CD writer/burner came out when I was in high school

    2 x speed at $3k LOL

    • +1

      I remember back in the days when new burner speed comes up, I "upgrade" my CD writer/ burner. FML.

      • +15

        I always had two drives so i could do "on the fly" copies.. feel like it failed most of the time and writable discs were exy for a teen.

        Nero is the GOAT

        • +3

          Best way before we got high speed internet was to go to LAN meets and download gigs (which was a lot back then) of files and then burn then to disc. LOL

        • +3

          All the time I spent learning how to burn a perfect redbook cd. All the little tricks you need to know about to get it to playback properly on all CD players even early ones, to have the gaps present properly, all of it. Such a waste of time.

        • +2

          Buffer underun error with the "Oh Nooo" sound lol..

          oh maybe the "Oh Nooo" sound was from ImgBurn or CloneDVD, can't remember haha

      • +5

        When a firmware revision doubled your write speed……those were the days.

    • +6

      and whoever owned one was making it back 6x being a pirate

      • +1

        I think I sold enough at uni to pay for my degree. I say that as I didnt use the money to pay off the degree but wasted it as a young adult

        • Walan (gmullabuggy)

          Or was it ocau I forget

    • +15

      Yep, what a time to be alive though, borrowing and returning PSX new release games from Blockbuster the same night 😏 and then downloading patches to get around copy protection for some games. It genuinely was a very fun time of my life.

      • Lol yep pirate life through the entire blockbuster collection

      • Oh yeah, I felt like such a hacker. And some games were very specific to the type of writable disc, and also rumours that burning on a low speed better guaranteed success..

      • +2

        You didn't chip your PSX like I did to allow for pirated games to work? We had a production line going at my work - actually 2 productions lines:
        1. 1 person with a soldering iron soldering the chip onto all of our PSXs
        2. Another guy making "backup copies" of PSX games that we borrowed from video stores

        Ah the memories….

        • I had a soldered chip (from infamous Laverton Market VIC where so many pirates were targetted in stings), but some games still had copy protection that you had to patch the ISOs for before burning on the disc. e.g. FFIX had Libcrypt copy protection.

          Otherwise it wouldn't boot on a modded PSX. This is because the original discs had errors that would cause issues and couldn't properly be copied. Simplified explanation.

        • I once had a special dvd drive that can dump wii / gamecube games.. i remember it was hard to find specific model with special firmware.

      • +1

        Same but for Civic Video for me. I was late to the party, but Civic carried PS1 games literally til they closed like 10 years ago. When I realized I could do the same with the CD based PS2 games I shit my pants and was always on the look for the blue disc wonders.

        I remember burning copies of Lego Star Wars 1 in my two CD Windows 2000 monster box for mates for Christmas on a stack of MTV branded CDR from Coles. Golden.

        • Honestly, I look fondly on those times. It was so much fun. Nostalgia.

      • +3

        Hahaha i still rmemeber PSXCOPYWORLD. COOOM / gamecopyworld / consolecopy world! All the patches lol

    • +5

      LH C:\DOS\MSCDEXE.EXE

    • +1

      Yep! Had the JVC brand And it took about 6 discs to get 1 disc right each after about 2+ hrs of wait times! Those were the days! Software was Nero if I remember correctly. 🥸🥸🥸

      • Ahh Nero haha. I used that and Fireburner

      • Nero Burn baby. Those were the days.

        • Did anyone pay for Nero?

          • @N15: Came freexwith my cd writer

        • +1

          With a 28.8kbps modem, that dial up sound, going in stealth mode to pirated sites for MP3’s. Then making your own mixed cd’s Those were the days 😂

    • I remember buying a triple speed burner for $900. Still had to use a caddy in the drive. Not one of those fancy pants caddy-less models for me.

    • I remember transfering one zipped/winrar song over multiple floppy disks!

    • +1

      I knew this guy with a small music studio and he bought the first series of Yamaha burner. After a month he decorated the studio walls with failed discs and he could not remember how many times he called Yamaha support, who knew next to nothing on how to set it up. I met him after he had given up on the Yamaha. I said I would take a look. I enabled caching for the drive on his very expensive computer and it started to work, very happy he was.

  • Better stockpile some blanks

    • Yeah they're ending blank blu-rays soon.

      • Yeah nah. M-Disc is the only format that you can reliably data archive on knowing it'll definitely last decades. Everything else… EVERYTHING ELSE will suffer data integrity issues. All your hard drives, CD drives, flash memory, Micro SD etc…. all of it is useless as a data backup.

  • wot dis?!

    • +10

      A cup holder for your pc. lol

  • +7

    Some people are interested in this drive because with certain version of firmware (1.02), the drive could be used to rip UHD blu ray discs.

    • I bought this exact one a few years ago because I figured I might still have a need to rip and burn stuff… still don't think I've even used it 😆

    • I did buy this too and actually used it for that reason. Paid about double this price for it tho, maybe more. Its still sitting in my i7 rig from 2013 lol

  • Get an external one.

    • If you don’t need it all too frequently, an adapter to USB can do the trick for not much. I use my desktop UHD drive without putting it in any case/chasis.

      Externals drives cleaner, but as others noted this models popular for its ability to be flashed to support UHD ripping.

  • +5

    Over burning was the game changer.

    • +4

      the 80 minutes CDs

  • +3

    This needs to be in a museum not Ozbargain

    • You can use this drive to rip 4K Blu-ray discs.

  • +3

    upcoming rush of IT people needing to reinstall windows after Fridays efforts

    • +1

      Please insert the boot disk……..

  • Didn't the news say they are going to stop making writable blu ray discs?

    • Was just one company stopping, few others still will

    • I think Japanese companies (Sony, Panasonic) stop making blu ray recordable discs in Japan. It has been quite difficult to get BD-R DL and XL discs made in Japan here for quite some time.

      I still prefer Japanese made recordable discs, they tend to last longer.

      • Thats funny as they only just stopped using floppy disks in Japan. Up until recently it was a requirement to have your resume on a floppy disk in Japan which was clearly an outdated thing. They only just started updating these requirements and i remember reading an article on it.

        • I think recordable discs will still be available, except made in Taiwan or China or other countries. There isn't enough demand in Japan to continue making them there (cost too much).

        • They still use fax machines a lot too

    • Only Sony brand

  • +1

    Tempted to buy as a backup for making backups

  • +1

    Meh I'll wait for the new Petabyte Disc Writers

    • Gunna be a while mate… the people that invented it only released the paper on it earlier this year :).
      Years for it to be retail, and considering its data capacity THOUSANDS of dollars.

      • Exactly, USB NVMe's are good enough atm

      • +1

        They won't want to wait too long. Standards that mess around getting to market always get beaten to the post like HD-DVD.

        • Agreed!

          Petabyte discs definitely look the goods and have the potential to really change how large amounts of data is stored.
          But I don't reckon we'll see anything for at least 5 years. Longer.

  • +2

    Lots of people commenting who have no clue on what M-Disc is :).
    For data archiving, M-Disc is far superior to anything else available.

    Also, this drive is basically MAKEMKV lore. So if you want to back up your 4K movies, THIS thing is magic.

    • M-discs are too expensive and most of them are no longer made in Japan.

      Also, we are spoiled by SSD and cloud streaming.

      • +1

        How so? If $100 (pack of 5 discs of 100Gb each) is too much money to store family photos and videos (I'm assuming 500Gb would cover that easily for most people), then you aren't taking data backup seriously enough.

        And relying only on cloud storage for all my kids photos?!? Yeah no thanks. Cyber crime, system failures, anything 'connected' is risky. Off site, cold storage… multiple copies. Gold standard.

        Believe me, when your family photo back up drive fails you're gunna pony up hundreds, if not thousands for someone to get that irreplaceable data back.

        Nearly every single comment above ridiculing this drive as an antiquated product are in for a rude shock in about a decade when their backup hard drives with all their precious family photos stored away in a cupboard somewhere doesn't work.

        Get educated folks. Flash discs, NVME, Micro-SD, and hard drives are NOT back ups that'll last.
        Up to 5-10 years tops…. then you start getting data degradation (ie LOSS OF DATA!).

        Do yourselves a favour and change your data archiving now. M-Disc can theoretically last 1000 years.
        But you only need to get to say 20 years reliably until the next jump in data storage technology occurs.

        I sound like an M-Disc salesman, but it really is that good. Google if you don't believe me. For data archiving (proper long term storage), nothing else compares. It's not standard CD, DVD, or Blu-ray… don't lump it in with those as they are also poor long term storage.

        • I have a few concerns:

          • Review feedback comments from people having bad experience with M-Discs which are not made in Japan.
          • I generally don't bother checking the burn quality after a disc backup (and the only software I know is really dated and when I tried to buy a copy, the site didn't work properly).
          • I found dodgy SATA cables can lead to weird writer behaviour, result in bad quality disc burns.
          • Also, the really nice figures quoted for M-Discs were based on DVD type of M-Discs. If we assume BD-Rs lasting shorter than DVD-Rs, then it is best to assume M-Discs with such a large amount of data will also lead to reduction of lifetime.

          If I can get made in Japan M-Discs, then I might consider. However, if you can show us a quality scan of one of your M-discs, then that will be more convincing (preferably a M-disc that's not made in Japan). In theory, the jitter level and BIS should both be top notch.

          My current issue is way too many discs and searching through them is a pain. Also, new PC cases are generally not designed to have optical drive bays.

        • The most concerning discussions are these two:

          Verbatim has been marketing cheaper Blu-Ray blanks than M-Discs since October 2022 without labeling them
          PSA: Verbatim no longer sells real M Discs, now puts regular BD-Rs in M Disc packaging

          The M-Disc review I read didn't indicate that, but did question the real longevity of Blu-ray recordable version of M-Disc since the M-Disc specs and claims were for DVD based M-Discs.

          Lastly, with phones being so cheap, we just keep taking photos all the time. Write once discs are not ideal for all backup situations. Long term archival data, fair enough, but I now have a dilemma on whether I should backup another copy on discs for old data on old discs which are over 10 years old (because most of them I have not actually use the backup even once in the past 10 years).

    • @UFO Is this a M-Disc writer as well?

      • Yep, burns M-Disc no issues

    • @UFO Stupid question but can it playback 4K UHD Blu-Ray if I want to watch a movie or is it more for ripping?

  • Clone CD and Clone DVD :)

  • Back before social media when people did productive things

  • +2

    Have one of these with flashed firmware to rip 4k blu rays!

  • What's a good cheap enclosure for this is we no longer have drive bays?

  • Could I get a housing & plug it into a Mac & run a generic driver?

  • +1

    Wish PC companies still manufactured a case or two with 5.25" drive bays for us physical media hoarders: for one thing, these internal BD readers seem to be way cheaper and less finicky than the external ones, and there seems to be plenty floating around on the used market.

    • +2

      Fractal Design Pop. Just ordered one for this reason. Two 5.25” bays.

    • They do
      Pop air

  • Remember the good old days I don't need the internet to enjoy the shows.

  • How is it burning Blu-Ray these days? Can ImgBurn just rip the ISO from any Bluray disc and then burn it onto a blank disc? Looking to backup my bluray collection of course………….

    • +1

      Not for movies, which still has protection in place. Most people probably use makeMKV. It has quite a few options. For example, if you don't care about the extra features, you could just backup the movie itself.

      • Noice. MakeMKV can bypass the protection on movies?

  • This brings back memories of the Release scene…DoD for the win..

  • Still all good with my Ricoh 4x burner that I've firmware hacked to make OVERBURN my 99 minute CD-Rs at 6x speed with Nero Burning Rom.

  • Still have 150 blank blurays in the house somewhere might get this to start burning again.

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