My personal experience is using a DVD-writer, I bought the Verbitan DVD-R 2x at 6F of Sim Lim Sq. at $1.2/pc, the packing is 25pc in a rim case (cake box), the speed is a bit slow, but it is cheap or a faster speed like 4X costs around $2/pc. For DVD-writer, TDK 12X is on sale at $179, I guess it is a NEC oem, I am also a NEC user
, no matter what kind of back up media, I personally like the most compatible and easy to buy one, so as it is a common products, the competition of the manfactors will bring down to price, it in turn to make the product to become more propular, e.g. CD-R, floppy diskette ...etc. It is just my 2 cent idea, hope it help a bit