Where to from here for the optical drive?

Well I think, until I can afford to buy and download games over the internet I will still be using my Optical drive.

on a side note: the link in the article doesn't take me directly here.
 
I concur... I have a laptop and the ONLY time I ever use the optical drive is to burn a DVD movie for the kids. That is it. Every thing else is on external HDD or bootable flash drives. Even the OS install is an image recovery from a USB flash drive.

The cost / convenience ratio is becoming a moot point too... I find too that non-optical storage is faster and more convenient anyway. Just need to set up a media-streamer and then even the DVD in the lounge can go.

If bandwidth and line-speed in the country were not the bottle neck they are then cloud storage would become a viable alternative.

BUT, what to fall back on when an electromagnetic pulse or virus or hacker takes out all our cloud, SSD, HDD storage ? I perhaps would rather have a scratched optical disk than some fried memory stick any day!

EDIT:
Xzib1t said:
on a side note: the link in the article doesn't take me directly here.
Click to expand...

Same here... it links to the sub forum front page rather than this discussion thread.
 
Last edited:
Apple products do have a big impact in industry, if one looks at the iMac, iPhone, iPod, iPad. But in the same breath, other products do not have such a large impact, like the iTV.
The main problem is that countries, like SA, don't have the internet capacity to download 6GB games in a day or two, so getting games without an optical drive will be tough except if game stores start selling games on flash drives. I saw 8GB flash drives the other day for about R200, so it is getting cheap, and when mass produced for a game, it will be even cheaper.

I guess it is the next logical step for computers, to remove all moving drives, the harddrive is already on its way out, so yes, optical drive is next to go. But I recon the optical drive will be with us for at least 5 more years, most likely 10 more years.
 
I agree. Next year will be the begin of the end for dvd's and blue ray discs. I saw that coming last year already. Cheap memory cards (finger nail size) can already store as much as a blueray disc with the added benefit of not having to worry about a player. The other thing is the agreement on a general data(movie) exchange format which should be in place by this time next year. By december 2011 one could go to the supermarket around the corner, buy something to eat and on the way out stop for a few minutes next to a 21 century jukebox. Inserting his memory stick into one of the usb3 ports and downloading a few selected movies for the evening. With a decent internet connection,one could do the downloading right from his home.
 
When I can lend and resell a download, then I'll consider it. Until then I prefer to buy things on those nice shiny optical discs.
 
Was this article written by some one who lives in the US, where fast internet is common? In SA only a tiny percentage even have internet. What the hell are they going to use if their pc's ship without optical devices? Are shops going to have to sell their games on flash disks?
 
I think if Blu Ray was picked up as quickly as writable CDs and DVD-Rs were we'd probably be a bit more reliant on optical media rather than external hard-drives. In terms of long term storage I would put my faith in optical discs before mechanical hard-drives.

Another thing, why hasn't anyone come up with a file system that one can use on ss hardware (be it usb or sd card etc) that can be protected as read only?
 
I actually haven't used my dvd drive in over a year. Since it stopped reading I never bothered replacing it. Installing windows and drivers or even games of a flash drive works fine. Plus all my movies and on a harddrive which is so much easier to access than having to pop in a disc each time
 
I doubt it will die any time soon, well especially South Africa. I mean, who's going to download a 1080p movie with a 384k line.
And Blu-Ray are still fairly new and Blu-Ray 3D are there to support it for future.

In my opinion, Optical media are here to stay for the next +-15 years.
 
A question that needs to be asked is how will software vendors like Microsoft [insert your vendor here] distribute their products ?

Would one see a future where these software products are distributed on flash drives ?

Or will motherboard firmware evolve to the point that the firmware would connect to the internet to install an operating system?

Will there still be an operating system ? or will cloud computing become the norm ?

What about countries that have low-level internet penetration or poor and expensive bandwidth like SA?

Article raises a few points but as per above leaves a lot of questions unanswered.
 
Buzybuy said:
Cloud storage is getting closer, just the bandwidth hurdle.
Click to expand...

It is, and for a lot of application I am really behind it. BUT... you don't really own the data on the cloud. Take photos for example, sure you are under the guise that it's a lot more secure than other backup mediums. The problem lies in the fact that start-up companies offering 'cheap' online file hosting are probably more likely to fail than your optical media or hard-drive even. Then you have to consider ownership, generally these companies offer month by month contracts. That's great! While you're alive... if you've uploaded gigabytes of family photos/videos to the net and then walk out in front of a bus. Who in your grief stricken family are going to remember to renew the subscription on top of all the other legal concerns that come about when someone passes?

If there are established companies that offer 'eternal' subscriptions, I'm all ears.
 
My optical just gathers dust :( Waste of precious space imo. Everything can be downloaded digitally these days and for those stuck in the past (once agian in my opinion) they can just buy an external optical. I'd much rather have more spce for imporatant things. Can a flash drive not do the same and more than a optical disk?
 
I like keeping all my media where its easily accessible without making a mess... Disc changer library was not an option, so I've settled for an obscene amount of 1.5tb drives... Backing this up is a right royal pain, some DVD's won't read after a while, some will have read errors... So, I purchased a couple of Western Digital Sharespace 8tb (4x2tb) units, Back everything up on those... tired of discs! Flash Drive over disk any day! Now, if only we had 8tb SS drives at LOW enough price...
 
@rage: the problem is that a 4gb flash disk, even sd card(who knows how long that will be around for) is still so much more than a 4.7gb dvd
 
@LabAnimal: I hope those drives are stored somewhere hidden like the roof. You're probably more likely to have those expensive looking electronics equipment stolen than it failing on you. I've heard a lot of stories about people having their storage stolen in burglaries.
 
I dont think it will go. How will I view dvd's, install games/drivers/OS's etc? I havent seen any publishers/app providers releasing software/media on flash yet.

It will stay for at least a decade more in SA.
 
>>To be honest this discussion started when Apple released the original MacBook Air

As far as I'm aware, this discussion started years ago with the eee PC; and even before that, the Sony subminiature notebooks shipped with an external USB DVD drive, probably because back then they were cheaper than USB sticks big enough to fit the OS reinstall on. I guess the discussion for apple users started when Apple released the Macbook Air, but other OS users had already had the discussion and settled it a while ago.

Like anything, Apple only leaps into the market when other companies have tried and tested a concept, and the tech has become cheap enough for them to leap into the market and push volume on technology that Joe Public might not know about, but is well known to techies. They're not good at inventing new things, they're awesome at marketing things as their own.

>> I will lay money that five years from now the majority of PCs sold will still have them and it will be easy to get one 10 years from now, because it took forever for the floppy to die and more PCs have PS2 ports than don’t.

PCs have to do this, because they have a really long service life. Apple products seem to be on a 3-year or so life span. After that time, don't expect Apple to support them, OS updates probably won't target it, etc. Contrast this to the PC world where a 10+ year PCs are used to run current versions of Linux, and Microsoft supports their operating systems for 10+ years. PCs almost always get the tech before Apples do, and have to support it WAY after Apple has forgotten about it. They're different worlds, and personally I prefer the more open world of PCs, where I choose for myself what I like on the computer.
 
Just wouldn`t mind seeing more decent pricing on Blu-ray & DL rewriteables.
2k for the combo drive is getting a bit more realistic but +/- R150 a blank is insane.

Optical media spreads more than PC`s. DVD,Blurays players,backups,software,PS consoles, XBox consoles.
If that internet is down at-least I can load that disk.
 
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