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Posing the question; Do we still need optical drives?


VaporX

  

27 members have voted

  1. 1. Do we still need optical drives

    • Yes
      13
    • No
      11
    • Other (explain)
      3


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I use three, dual bay fan controller and a (before it died, and when i replace it) a CD/DVD Drive.

 

Edit: and don't people use them to hold their res when water cooling? (not that thats most people)

 

I use two, fan controller and bay res. I've never used more than 2 in the last like 5 years.

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What's a DVD? :teehee:

 

I don't have much use for the one in my computer but I have it anyway, it's not really a hindrance after all and when you do need one, it's there. I think as far as bang for buck goes, that's where it's still good, DVD/CD burners are super cheap and so are the discs, you just need a use for them first.

 

I pretty much just use flash drives though, that or get whatever I need straight from the internet. Anymore I would say my only real use for having my optical drive is just for normal people that aren't tech savvy enough to use flash drives or anything beyond Netflix. That's part of the reason for why I don't get the purpose of this thread, almost everyone here is tech savvy and knows of a better way to do whatever they need. CDs and DVDs and Bluray are just for the technologically challenged folks.

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The only thing I use the cd drive for is to burn audio cd's and dvd's for family and friends and xbox 360 backups for people with LT 3.0 flashed firmware on their xbox drive.

 

I havent installed a game or program or driver off a CD in close to 6-7 years.

 

I use external hard drives for backing up data when i do a fresh reformat and I have a corsair 64GB GTR (which btw is basically the fastest usb 2.0 flash drive around, wish I would of waited for the usb 3.0 flash sticks though) and I keep windows and all my updated drivers and all my personal documents photos and such on it AND it forms the bulk of my keychain and its nice having your flash drive with you always, never know when it may come in handy.

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I still like to buy my software physically, as its a lot faster to install a 3-15gb program/game from a disc then it is to download (even with high speed servers). It took me 2hrs to download bf3 last night. It would have took 5 minutes if I had a physical copy. I still use my optical drives in my machines on a weekly basis. With the extremely cheap prices of optical drives, I dont see what the hurt of having one, even if you dont use them. A nice bluray burner cost $50-80 bucks. If you rarely use an optical drive, you can get a basic cd-dvd burner for $12 bucks.

 

EDIT* This would be a nice poll of the week question.

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I still like to buy my software physically, as its a lot faster to install a 3-15gb program/game from a disc then it is to download (even with high speed servers). It took me 2hrs to download bf3 last night. It would have took 5 minutes if I had a physical copy.

 

I'd disagree. At least in my case. I have a decent internet speed so for me it's faster to install digitally. But I count the time it takes to drive to the store, buy the disc, drive back, and then start installing. Or I can just buy it instantly online and install right away and i'm already playing before I'd even be back from the store. And if you pre order often times you can preload it and be playing minutes or even seconds after release...or in the case of Skyrim I was playing an hour before the stores could release it.

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I still like to buy my software physically, as its a lot faster to install a 3-15gb program/game from a disc then it is to download (even with high speed servers). It took me 2hrs to download bf3 last night. It would have took 5 minutes if I had a physical copy. I still use my optical drives in my machines on a weekly basis. With the extremely cheap prices of optical drives, I dont see what the hurt of having one, even if you dont use them. A nice bluray burner cost $50-80 bucks. If you rarely use an optical drive, you can get a basic cd-dvd burner for $12 bucks.

 

EDIT* This would be a nice poll of the week question.

 

Im not so sure that physical disk is faster anymore. Especially with things like games. Even if you had BF3 on disk, as soon as you had it installed you would have needed to download patches.

 

Besides that, you are forgetting the time it takes to GET the physical media. That involves either ordering it online and waiting, or going to the shops. Once you factor that time in, the digital REALLY wins.

 

When I purchased L4D2 digitally, it was much faster than going to the shop.

 

Took about 2hrs to download. If I had gone to the shop to get it, it would have taken at least 40 minutes. More if I walk and dont drive.

 

 

Back to the topic at hand, up till this week I had not used the ODD on my main rig in probably a year. But got some more TV shows the wife dosent want to watch over xmas, so been watching on my PC rather than in the lounge.

Other than to watch films, I never use my ODD anymore. As many games as I can get away with I buy over steam, and the rest I will do my best to use a no-cd crack. (I own the dam game! dont make me keep putting the disk in!)

 

At work, we have stopped ordering our laptops with ODDs, and as yet not a single one of our users has even noticed the lack of a drive. (We purchased a USB drive just in case, but its not even out of the box yet!)

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We don't need them. Even some of the slowest USB drives are faster than many optical mediums.. But, they won't be vanishing anytime soon either. Personally: Keep your optical drives, but hope that everything is moved to digital/flash storage soon. DVD Drives are noisy and slow, and DVD/BR/CD/etc are unreliable and easily damaged.

 

Whatever the next console gaming rig is, it would make for a HUGE push to digital if they removed the optical drive and replaced it with a USB based loading drive.. It wouldn't cost too much extra to sell the games on a secured flash drive and would be cheaper for them to be entirely digitally distributed online (though that leaves out the offline customer basis, hence recommending flash loaders)... Not to mention that they wouldn't be limited to a specific optical size limit like they are now.. As they could just use larger capacity flash drives for games requiring more data..

 

But unless a console system decides to implement this.. I doubt us PC people will see optical drives depreciate any time soon... As console is mainstream, and when they do something.. It catches major business attention, and usually leads to trend changes in technology.

 

--Edit: As for flash drives... Patching could be made much simpler.. As instead of recalling or simply selling out the remainder of the optical drives that contain un-patched software.. Distributors could simply be given a method of bypassing DRM, and editing the patch right into the flash loaders themselves.. Making patching an almost instantaneous change, instead of something most users don't see benefits of for weeks or months. Also seems like a way to make more jobs, having semi-professional tech-employees load in the patches at the shipping terminals/end retailers..

 

Getting rid of optical media would do the world a huge favor in a billion ways.. Even leaving more of the raw materials to be used to help catch up this damned hard drive shortage with the floods.. Lowering production costs by means of raising supply, as some of the same raw materials are used in opticals and HDDs.

Edited by dragonsdontfly

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