WTH!? That's insane! Oooooch! >_<

As big as it would be, the benefit is really in having a normal-sized external drive...

Or one of these, since they're only $300.

Besides, it's not as though you'll be doing much with it in OS X...

Actually, it looks like it takes two USB, so it's a good thing you have a 17", otherwise you wouldn't be able to get the Y-cable to reach...

 

Has anyone actually seen one of these for sale yet?

 

Part of the price is because it is slot loading. Most laptops use tray loading drives thus not as many slot loading ones are built. Especially the really slim drives needed by Macbook Pros.

Powerbook medic does carry one for the low price of $700
http://www.powerbookmedic.com/xcart1/product.php?productid=17116

 

Bleh, why do you need blueray?

Just download a movie from a blueray rip, or grab it off itunes on HD.

Disc format is dead, as far as I'm concerned.

 

As he says he needs it for data backup:

Each disk can hold 50GB (Soon to be 400GB!!)
And being Disks they are far more reliable than tape backups, which frankly suck, but you probably dont even know what they are.

 

I know this has nothing to do with the original post, but I will always buy my movies in disc format. Same goes for music, I will always buy CDs.

Why? Because when I have a physical disc, it's a lot easier to do what I want with it. I can put it in my PS3 and watch it on my TV, I can rip it to my iPod, I can back it up on an external drive, etc.

I realize that discs can get scratched up or broken, but the lifespan of a disc is much more than a hard drive.

 

Interesting. But yeah, I'd just get an external solution. It's not like you can use it under OS X.

 

For MOVIES. He can back up data in OS X.

 

Whats the point of blue ray on a laptop?
next you'll be watching blue ray on your Ipod.......

 

We had the same issue come up recently when trying to figure out how to handle some extremely high resolution images taken from medical equipment. These images range from 10 - 30GB each so it was hell to try to find a workable method of archiving the data in a way that could be pulled later.

Blu-ray wasn't really going to work because no computers had a Blu-ray drive to read the burned media and the media itself was so expensive that we basically dropped the idea very quickly.

The solution we found was just using portable hard drives at 250GB - 500GB each. The price for Blu-ray media is still so high that buying these in bulk was a much cheaper per GB option. It saves our network and it gives us a way to use the data on any of dozens of workstations via USB.

We had to use secondary methods for backups because the portable disks could fail, but the same is true for burned media being broken in an accident of some kind.

 

1. He's not using it for MOVIES.
2. Data.
3. If he WERE using it for movies, perhaps he wants to watch them on the go? Having a 17" MacBook Pro gets him the "full" resolution, so there is no problem there.
4. The iPod thing has been done, you know... People say it looks a little better.

 

Understand.

I will not use spanning with any type of media. It has never worked reliably for me. I much prefer images/clones so I can access the individual files if needed.

Maybe when we see 400GB on an optical disc I will choose that option. But for now, its easier for me to use an external HD to back up data. Faster too since I don't have to monitor during the backup to swap discs. HDs are cheap these days.

 

Unfortunately.

So why do you want to watch BR movies on your laptop?

Questions:

- What size blank?

- How long does it take to burn one?

- What cost are you able to get them in bulk?

TIA.

 

As far as YOUR concerned. Fine.

Not as far as the OP is concerned. Or, indeed, I'm concerned. I want to author BR material. I want to do 50 gig backups to optical media. I can't. I could with a twelve hundred buck PC laptop. But not with a mac that costs twice as much.

 

Wow. I had no idea blue ray held so much!

 

Why not? Buy Toast. Problem solved.

 

Hrm this actually would be a bad idea (thanks op). Not the internal drive but an external BD drive for data. I have plenty of items that are just taking up space and screwing up my backup scheme. They don't need to be stored, they need to be archived (in my particular situation) and DL dvd is a bit prohibitive per gb. Atleast with BD i'd be able to backup an entire project.