New PC - Optical drives necessary?

chickenbeef

chickenbeef

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IMO optical drives are no longer necessary for new builds, OS installs can be done via flash drives (like I do) or external HDDs. I've actually had mine disconnected for the past few months now. It gives your case a sleeker look and reduces clutter on test benches.

Discuss.
 
My optical drive is in my PC, but not even connected either :)

Installing the operating system from a CD is just so much easier than from a flash drive though.
 
The only time I ever use my optical drive is to re/install OSs. I just couldn't bother trying to figure out how to boot from a USB drive or fiddling with boot sectors and boot loaders (or is it easy and I'm just being daft?).

That said, the optical drive is definitely dying, including CD, DVD and Blu-ray - on the way out. Magnetic drives will be the next to go, fairly soon, within the next 5 years or so. Flash memory FTW! Netbooks, tablets and smartphones have already done away with the slow, irritating, noisy, heavy, power hungry drives. Laptops and desktops will be the next to follow.

Do you guys remember a few years ago when Nokia shipped a phone with an internal magnetic mini hard drive??! Thank God it did not take off. Flash memory, the internet, wireless networks and ubiquitous app stores will soon be the order of the day. The future of computing is NOT in mechanical devices.

The future looks bright.
 
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ToxicWazte said:
<snip>
That said, the optical drive is definitely dying, including CD, DVD and Blu-ray - on the way out. Magnetic drives will be the next to go, fairly soon, within the next 5 years or so. Flash memory FTW!
<snip>
Click to expand...
Flash drives/SSD's are not magnetic drives, but tape and hard disk drives are magnetic storage devices.

Bluray drives will still remain for quite a while - or at the very least till we're still using ADSL/3G for Internet.
 
I also mostly only use my optical drive to re-install the OS... I've had mine disconnected in the past, but it's a great inconvenience not to have it connected when you want to quickly use it, so mine stays connected.

I'll be glad if bluray is on it's way out - it means that I won't have to upgrade ;)
 
Pada said:
Flash drives/SSD's are not magnetic drives, but tape and hard disk drives are magnetic storage devices.
Click to expand...

Nobody said they were. I think you misread my post. Magnetic drives are the normal hard drives we use, that have motors to spin the disk platters, and mechanical arms to position the read/write head on the correct track.

Bluray drives will still remain for quite a while - or at the very least till we're still using ADSL/3G for Internet.
Click to expand...

Bluray will die the quickest death of them all, living shorter than the VHS, CD and DVD. In places like America, Europe and the Far East, where 20mbps internet connections are the standard, and higher connections of 50mbps and 100mbps are becoming highly available, people don't rent DVDs or Blu-rays (either in-store or online). They download/stream directly from the internet, in HD quality. Either paying for content, or pirating it. Media players and HTPCs with internet connections have replaced traditional HT systems, DVD players and Blu-ray players.

The only thing holding us back in RSA is the availability of high speed broadband connections, and the ridiculous price.
 
Still using optical, but like others have said, just because it's easier that messing around with a flash drive when doing OS installs.
Don't mind having one in my desktop, but I'd prefer it if they stopped shipping them in notebooks and rather allow for maybe an extra HDD removable dock or something when you have a 15"+ notebook.
 
Flash drives are so cheap nowadays I just have one dedicated to installing Windows 7 from. It only takes 5 minutes to set one up in any case and the install time is much faster than with a DVD.
 
Still using optical discs for OS installs and games. Going to be doing so for a while yet. Doubt I'll ever be happy with game downloads unless I get the same ability to lend and resell as I do with physical discs.

Not sure how fast SSDs are progressing, but they're still hugely expensive for tiny, tiny drives.

ToxicWazte said:
Bluray will die the quickest death of them all, living shorter than the VHS, CD and DVD. In places like America, Europe and the Far East, where 20mbps internet connections are the standard, and higher connections of 50mbps and 100mbps are becoming highly available
Click to expand...
I wonder what percentage of the population actually gets those speeds.
 
I hardly ever use my optical drive, not even for reloading OS ... I use a flash drive, it's less noisy :)
 
Nah, you still need one imho.

Installing software that comes on optical media. Friends giving you stuff on optical media, ripping/listening/watching CDs/DVDs etc.
 
I have a USB powered optical drive instead, put it away and take it out when needed.
 
imo there are 4 stumbling blocks to full DVD obscurity.

Most software providers ship their products on discs. No usb
Many software providers don't allow online shopping and still work through dealership networks.
If you could download the software or media you have to content with download size/costs and download duration.
Many people don't have credit cards.

Although many can now do without a optical drives, the majority will need one, or at least an external optical drive.
 
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Haven't used mine this year yet.

Besides, Win7 installs super fast from a flash stick. 12.5min on my box...and thats outdated gear. Pretty sure a beffy i7 box is <10min. SSD prob <5min.

You must however have access to an optical drive somewhere in the house. Worst case scenario then is you image it & push the image over the LAN.
 
Rock Bottom Computers said:
imo there are 4 stumbling blocks to full DVD obscurity.

Most software providers ship their products on discs. No usb
Many software providers don't allow online shopping and still work through dealership networks.
When you can download the software and media you have to content download size/costs and download duration.
Many people don't have credit cards.

Although many can now due without a optical drive the majority will need one, or at least an external optical drive
Click to expand...

But with all the app stores, PS3, Xbox online stores and cheaper uncapped internet people are becoming used to buying and downloading instead of buying a physical thing.

You also have paypal and debit cards that will work online.

Personally I think providers will have to change pretty soon or they will start loosing profit.
 
I like the idea of a USB optical drive. It can be shared amongst friends/colleagues or in a household on those rare occasions when it is needed. Agree that we can't yet fully do without them, but that time is approaching fast.
 
ToxicWazte said:
I like the idea of a USB optical drive. It can be shared amongst friends/colleagues or in a household on those rare occasions when it is needed. Agree that we can't yet fully do without them, but that time is approaching fast.
Click to expand...

+1

It's better to have one and not need than the other way round. I had to grab one out of my cupboard of ComputerCrap™ when I wanted to install this CAD software that came with the recent Popular Mechanics mag. Other than that it's all downloaded/USB driven.
 
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