Other World Computing has announced a new external Blu-ray burner—and although the company is mainly known for selling Mac peripherals, the OWC Mercury Pro Blu-ray Burner features interfaces that should let users burn BD media from just about anything with a USB 2.0, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, or eSATA port.
The burner managed 4× speeds, meaning it pushes about 1 GB per minute to BD media, making it a decent backup solution for folks with tons of video, photos, music, or other digital media to back up—although burning 50 GB to a double-layer BD disc will still take almost an hour. The drive can also read and/or write a wide swath of other optical formats—including DVD, CD, and even HD-DVD.
Two versions of the drive will be available: one with Roxio Toast 9 Titanium for Mac OS X included ($579.99) and a software-free drive for $499.99. Both units include all connection cables and two blank BD-R discs.
