to optical drive or not optical drive

did // would you include an optical in your previous // future RIG?

  • yes

    Votes: 15 93.8%

  • no

    Votes: 1 6.3%
  • Total voters
    16
  • Poll closed .
liquidmonkey

liquidmonkey

Member
just curious for those that have recently built or intend to build a computer soon, if you included an optical drive?

and why?


my impression is that optical drives are dead in the water.
 
liquidmonkey said:
just curious for those that have recently built or intend to build a computer soon, if you included an optical drive?

and why?


my impression is that optical drives are dead in the water.
Click to expand...

Your impression is badly wrong how else would you install all your necessary drivers etc?
 
If you were to get technical, you could have everything you need on a USB stick. Restore a Windows/Linux OS installation disc to a bootable USB drive/HD and you don't actually need an optical drive.

But to answer the question, yes, I would buy an optical drive. :)
 
You would be pretty stupid not to my laptop I had didn't have an optical drive and it made me go crazy any time I wanted to install something. Either buy one or pull one out of an old computer but you pretty much have to have it. If you don't your going to spend hours trying to put software on a USB stick and get it to work.
 
Optical drives will be obsolete one day, but that day is still down the road. We need to have an improved infrastructure in our homes and businesses. I can tell you right now at work, I install zero software from a CD or DVD. I may use that CD or DVD to create an image or a snap shot of that program and then deploy it over the network.

This method will probably be adapted in the future down the road when wireless is every where and reliable and fast. Things will come in disk images instead of installers on disks.

So, I would include an optical drive on all future builds until that happens, and that could be decades down the road from now. Cloud computing may be the new way computers work, but then again it is not tried, tested and proved to be the way to go.
 
FairDoos said:
Your impression is badly wrong how else would you install all your necessary drivers etc?
Click to expand...


That's the last thing I would do with an optical drive. I usually toss any CD that comes with any hardware I buy. You always want to go online to get your drivers in order to get the most up to date versions. This is especially true when it come to network adapters, and many driver CDs for NICs come with 3rd party network software that is bulky and unneeded.

As for the OP's question, while optical drives are surely on the way out, I would still install one. They're cheap and they still have some use, so you might as well.
 
-install windows?
-install games/sofware?
-burn music cd's?
-burn data dvd's for backup?
-burn movie dvd's?

lol I hope you were joking when you asked that question. For the $25 they cost and the several major uses for them you are stupid not to get one, atleast for now and another year or two.

Are you gonna make a poll now to find out who is gonna include a processor in their next build? Too soon to go without an optical drive, too soon. This build? YES, next built? probably, built after that? maaaaybe not.
 
Last edited:
I have two optical drives. I like burning CDs to play on my big stereo, DVDs for movies, DVD-rewriteables for data backup, and installing Windows and software.
 
Of course!

I doubt il buy another standard DVD Reader or DVD-RW drive again though...il go blu-ray WR next time.
 
Lets see here... I had to install Windows. Even using virtual machines, most of the time I relied on CDs over ISOs. I also had to install software on my computer, almost all of which was on CDs. I'm also a video editor and I'm in the process of making a wedding video for my cousin. Oh, and lets not forget my car; I make MP3 CDs for music while I drive.

So does my recent build have an optical drive? OF COURSE! I didn't spend much time researching drives as I did say the motherboard or something but I think it's rather insane to go without some kind of optical drive.

Even with technology heading towards solid-state devices and such, the market is still dominated by optical drives.
 
is this a joke?

i dont use floppy drives but optical drives are a necesity at the present day and age

tlarkin said:
They are talking about selling DVDs and CDs on solid state memory chips now, that plug in via USB.
Click to expand...

but they would have to be able to make solid state memory chips cheaper than cds or dvds for company such as microsoft etc to use them
 
funkysnair said:
is this a joke?

i dont use floppy drives but optical drives are a necesity at the present day and age



but they would have to be able to make solid state memory chips cheaper than cds or dvds for company such as microsoft etc to use them
Click to expand...

That is why they are talking about it and not doing it yet, but it will be cheap soon, and they will have built in DRM on them too!
 
funkysnair said:
is this a joke?

i dont use floppy drives but optical drives are a necesity at the present day and age



but they would have to be able to make solid state memory chips cheaper than cds or dvds for company such as microsoft etc to use them
Click to expand...

That's a very good point, and a strong argument against getting rid of CD/DVD's.
 
tlarkin said:
That is why they are talking about it and not doing it yet, but it will be cheap soon, and they will have built in DRM on them too!
Click to expand...

yeh like evrything else prices do come down, i think there are a few years left really because we are still going to use them for other things

eg. i use my camcorder then plug it into my pc and put video onto disk to watch on dvd players thats just one example

im sure we will be using something like what tlarkin is mentioning but it seems way ahead really
 
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