optical drives! are they really going away?

A

AndreRio

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 23, 2011
Messages
1,240
so is this an apple thing (no more optical drives?) what about pc's, are optical drives going the way of the dinosaurs?
 
Given:
- Software, audio, and video distribution is moving from physical media to various online services.
- The rise of the iPod and like systems over Disc/Walkman type units, and their general succession by smartphones.
- The trend towards slimmer, lightweight PC systems, necessitating the deletion of bulky optical drives.
- The growth of smartphones and tablets (which of course never used any physical app distribution) somewhat eating away at more traditional PC systems.
- The general public's general disinterest in Blu-Ray (DVD and streaming are seemingly "good enough" for most).
- Flash media and USB drives having much greater capacity and speed than most recordable optical media.

...yeah, the optical drive is dying.

It's not just an Apple thing, though they are typically less conservative about leaving behind tech heading towards obsolescence (e.g., floppy disks, optical media, PCMICA/CardBus/ExpressCard) and adopting emerging tech (e.g., USB, Firewire, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt) (sometimes despite themselves and to the bitter end). The growth in UltraBooks and SFF systems like the NUC on the PC side are also indicators of this trend.
 
Optical drives are only going away in the consumer realm.
 
Now that you can boot multiple OSes and disk images off a single cheap 32GB or 64GB USB stick using tools like Yumi, why would you use a disc for anything?
 
Well, given that the entire planet is moving to digital content distribution for nearly everything that used to rely on physical media, I would say its days are definitely numbered. However, considering how long it took for the floppy to finally die, I would say that optical drives will be around for a while to provide legacy support for all the content which we already own.
 
CD-Rs and DVD-Rs can be had for well under 20p each retail for good brand media. Pressed CDs in bulk are probablly cheaper. USB sticks seem to start at about £1 each for the most basic unbranded crap.

So if you want to sell a product on physical media or include drivers for your product on physical media then an optical disc is by far the cheapest way to do it.

There is certainly a move towards online distribution but there are still many people who have to operate computers without easy access to a good internet connection either because of geographical location or because of security policies. There are also many people who dislike the activation/anti-resale requirements that are typically associated with online distribution (granted some vendors apply such requirements even with physical media and some vendors are DRM free regardless but if you buy games online and anti-resale clause in the agreement is almost a given)

Having said that the need for optical discs is now sufficiently occasional that an external drive shared between machines is often an acceptable soloution.
 
huh..... i built my pc about 7 months ago and i never have given a thought to installing an optical drive. since the first time i powered up the system i think i have needed it really bad about two times so i just used img burn on another pc to make an iso of it and just mount it on a virtual drive using deamon tools
 
I have never had an optical drive in my gaming rig. I have a portable optical drive that plugs into USB that I use to set up new OS's and what-have-you. But otherwise, I never see the need for a permanent optical drive installation on any rig I've built.
 
for mainstream PC users, the dvd drive will be the main means for distributing software purchased for a few years still. For any tech user (if you're here, that probably includes you), a DVD drive is not necessary at ALL. I personally have not used one for years except on the occasion I had to re-install windows on a PC and forgot my flash drive. With flash drives being cheaper, faster, more portable and reusable, there is no reason for a DVD. What I have done, is purchased:

x1 128gb flash drive with yumi and am able to install every flavor of Windows/Linux using that drive. (keep this data static, as all files need to be contiguous otherwise some ISOs will refuse to load)

x1 32gb flash drive to store all driver files and supplementary programs like office, magicISO, chrome, avast, weatherbug (sarcasm)....

x1 usb dvd burner for emergency situations. I keep the DVD burner and 4/5 blank CDs/DVDs in my car at all times as I do IT work and never know when it may come in handy for old PCs that will not bot from flash or if a flash drive fails, but I have not used it in probably 5 years except for 1 PC that would not boot from flash
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top