White SATA dvd-rom : did they even exist?

[massaker]

Can't remember when the first SATA dvd-drives hit the market, I just have a memory that it would be in early 2007-ish

I bought my Plextor PX-712SA in June or July 2004, an MSI XA52P was also available, so i would rather say: SATA DVD-burner were already a thing in late 2004-ish.

 

[Wirko]

$98 for a refurbed unit is such a scam.

But can £20 be considered a fair price?

I have a beige SATA model that says "TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223F ATA Device" in the device manager. TSST was Toshiba-Samsung. Bought it used for 4 EUR around 2016 but some persistence and luck were necessary to find one at all. The colour is contagious: over the years, the power and reset buttons on the white PC case have become beige too and they now closely match the DVD writer, so I can say this was by design.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

But can £20 be considered a fair price?

I would. I think the ones I bought back in the day cost around the same money brand new. So I would say it's fair based on the fact that they haven't taken into account inflation and that its quite a niche product these days. There aint that many beige drives around or people buying them. You wouldn't be buying one of these unless you wanted it for a retro project so its basically a collectors item.

You can still buy slimline external optical drives on Amazon or ebay for the same money or less