RANT: Why do you need two optical drives?

C

cruz610

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 29, 2003
Messages
354
I dont understand it. I see so many sigs here and people have a DVDRW and then a CDRW+DVD AND a CD-ROM. Its totally unnecessary. A DVD+-RW will cover you for all your dvd needs, all your cdr needs and all your cd needs. Of course I guess if you have a PC70 and have 7 of the 8 drives not occupied, it looks kinda stupid, but did you need the PC70 in the first place? ;) Sure I was tempted to do the same thing, but it just doesnt seem logical. A) its just one more piece of unneeded hardware drawing power away from my precious CPU and GPU, B) its not even a point of bragging right...saying you have quad CPUS is impressive. Quad CDROMS, not so much :D So anyone wanna explain to me why dual drives is necessary? Its not even needed to copy cds. Itll save you 2 life-threatening minutes.
 
Not all of us are fucking rich. Sure I would love to buy a dvd writer to replace my cdrw drive and dvd drive, but I don't have the money to spend on it. Also, if a cdrom drive is drawing power away from your cpu then you system is seriously fucked up. Now having a dvd drive, a cdrw drive, and a regular cdrom drive is pretty damn stupid.
 
LOL, you don't have to be right to have a DVD burner they're cheap these days. You could cover half the price selling your CD burner and DVD ROM.
 
CRXican said:
LOL, you don't have to be right to have a DVD burner they're cheap these days. You could cover half the price selling your CD burner and DVD ROM.
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So if it isn't that much money then go ahead and send it to me.
 
I could give a rant against having 4 hard drives in one PC like in your sig....since that's pretty much useless waste of power too, but it's your system, configure it as you wish. Same applies to optical drives. I prefer having 2 because I can separate tasks. I can run my DVD-ROM ragged with gaming CDs, and save my DVD-+RW drive for burning. I also like having two drives for those rare occasions when I just need to copy a CD quickly.
 
Try copying your backup cds with one drive :rolleyes:

some people have them because they need them. i have a dvd drive and a cdrom drive. Why, Because i can keep two cds without chopping and changing and if i want to copy something i can without firing it onto the desktop and burning it from there.
 
jpmkm said:
Also, if a cdrom drive is drawing power away from your cpu then you system is seriously fucked up. Now having a dvd drive, a cdrw drive, and a regular cdrom drive is pretty damn stupid.
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I was kidding about the drive drawing power ;) Just felt like driving the point home, hehe. And I agree with you that all three or any combination of them is stupid. But the point is still that if you have a DVD-RW or CDRW/DVD then you are covered period. You don't need the other one. Unless you want a DVD-RW which then you should buy that and sell your CDRW/DVD!
djnes said:
I could give a rant against having 4 hard drives in one PC like in your sig....since that's pretty much useless waste of power too, but it's your system, configure it as you wish.
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Sure you could except that there is a reason there are 4 hard drives in the PC. Unlike optical drives, unless you are using external HDDs or tape there is no good solution for having more storage.
scotmod said:
Try copying your backup cds with one drive
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Its incredibly easy. Just takes about 2 minutes to rip it. And I acknowledged that in my post; two drives is more convient for making "backup" copies, but how often do you really make backup copies? Why not make a DVD image of multiple cds?
 
personally, i was thinking of getting 2x dvd burners and keep my dvd-rom, removing my cdrw. i backup alot of stuff and itd be nice to be able to burn 2 things at once, or 2 copies at once.
 
cruz610 said:
I was kidding about the drive drawing power ;) Just felt like driving the point home, hehe. And I agree with you that all three or any combination of them is stupid. But the point is still that if you have a DVD-RW or CDRW/DVD then you are covered period. You don't need the other one. Unless you want a DVD-RW which then you should buy that and sell your CDRW/DVD!
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Some of us also have more important things to spend our money on, like mortgages, wives, car payments, and retirement funds, since social security won't be around. I'm looking at your system, and I can't help but feel that it's a tremendous waste of money. You could have gotten 98% of that performance for probably half the cost. So I feel the comments by others about money is spot on.
 
djnes said:
Some of us also have more important things to spend our money on, like mortgages, wives, car payments, and retirement funds, since social security won't be around. I'm looking at your system, and I can't help but feel that it's a tremendous waste of money. You could have gotten 98% of that performance for probably half the cost. So I feel the comments by others about money is spot on.
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I have plenty of other things to spend my money on; car payments and insurance, college, etc. Granted you can get 98% of the performance using lesser parts, but to get to that same level you are pushing those parts past their normal levels to their limits. I would rather have a system I can keep stock for right now, and when the time comes that it is necessary to do that to my system, I still have somewhat of a buffer zone. No matter what you are always going to be paying out the ass for new stuff; I had money from an insurance settlement to buy this computer that was specifically for that purpose, so I used it well. Money will always be an issue for us because this is not a cheap hobby [technology]. I have an IRA that I contribute to because you are right; I wont have social security in the future. I also don't spend my money on any other "creature comforts". This is my one bad habit. This and poker, lol. Fortunately I am good enough to make profit out of that so that can supplement this hobby. I work two jobs at school, plus one on the side. Its nice to be able to splurge on yourself every now and then!
 
Well some of us just happen to splurge by filling up our computers with cdrom drives. They have the money so why not, right?
 
I have 2 optical drives, a CD-RW, and a CD-Rom.

Why do i need them? Easier to Copy CD's, Allows me to pop in a CD of music while playing a game, lets me put in 2 of my backup CD's at a time so i get more done, faster.

It's efficient for me, and I like efficiency.
 
cruz610 said:
Its incredibly easy. Just takes about 2 minutes to rip it. And I acknowledged that in my post; two drives is more convient for making "backup" copies, but how often do you really make backup copies? Why not make a DVD image of multiple cds?
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Often.

Also, I really fail to see what the real problem is here. Whats the big deal if someone has more than 2 drives? Is it killing you ever time you see a PC with more than 1 drive?
 
The_Tecknishen said:
Also, I really fail to see what the real problem is here
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Hence why I titled it RANT ;)
In all seriousness I don't care if you have one or 50 optical drives. I am more curious than anything as it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you are doing mission-critical backups of cds at which point you may as well just buy a standalone cd replication system. When I was ordering my computer I was trying to justify getting two optical drives, but I couldn't find a reason when one fulfilled it more than sufficiently.
jpmkm said:
Well some of us just happen to splurge by filling up our computers with cdrom drives. They have the money so why not, right?
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I sense a little bit of snappiness in your reply :rolleyes: :p ;)
 
If you don't have 2 drives, how will you copy a CD? I wouldn't want to make an image of it on my HD, then burn it, becase that would take twice the time! (though since I've had my computer, i have never actually copied a CD before, LOL).

I guess you're right. My Lite-On 52x32x52 drive is a month old, and I've only burned one CD.
I should have bought a DVD burner.
 
Redundancy is another good reason. If you have one drive and it breaks, you don't have anything until you buy a new one. With two opticals drives, you keep on playing games or whatever until you decide to buy another one. I haven't ever had a PC without dual optical drives since CDR's came out. I already waste enough blank CDR's that are dirt cheap doing backups and such, I sure as hell wouldn't want to waste expensive DVD-R's... ;)
 
I'm just trying to figure out why you're ranting about what may or may not be in my computer. Do I know you, do you use my computer, do you pay my power bill (I wish you did)??



As to why people have two when one is perfectly adequate to do the job... you can take that statement to the Nth degree.

Do you own a car?? You know it's not necessary. A bicycle will also get you to work and school. It costs less, doesn't require nearly as much maintenance, and gives you some exercise to top it off.

I can't imagine why anyone would choose to have a car merely for a matter of convenience for them... :rolleyes:
 
I have a DVD drive and a DVD burner.

There's two reasons why I have this configuration:

1. Ripping DVD's is horrible on DVD burners. Check the speeds with any benchmarking utils. The speed of DVD burners (even if they're advertised at 8x or whatever) is usually multitudes slower (2x or 4x).

2. Copying. Yes, I could swap out the discs and copy, but when I copy DVD's (which take a while to rip, compress, then burn), I go and do other things. If I'm not present at my computer when it's time to swap the DVD, the burning never happens. This way I can go out and about when my computer takes care of all the tasks for me.
 
Xrave said:
2. Copying. Yes, I could swap out the discs and copy, but when I copy DVD's (which take a while to rip, compress, then burn), I go and do other things. If I'm not present at my computer when it's time to swap the DVD, the burning never happens. This way I can go out and about when my computer takes care of all the tasks for me.
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thats why people have two...
 
a lot of people also have the drives becasue they upgrade.... they buy a cd burner, a year later a dvd-rom, another year later a dvd-burner... shoudl they throw out the old shit? or keep it incase they need it? there are advantages to having 2 optical drives.. from copying cds, to using multi cd games or programs without having to swap cds, to playing a 2 cd vcd movie without having to change cds in the middle... they are handy sometimes..

people buy what is most cost effective at the time.. i choose a cd burner over a dvd burner, becasue i don't even own a dvd, and havne't had to use one once.. so i didn't see spending almost 3 times the money for one over a cd burner..

/rant ??? or something like that...
 
I have dual DVD+-R/RWs. This comes in handy as I use my computer for an entertainment center, this way I can watch a DVD on either drive and still be able to do whatever I want with the other one. It is also useful when burning 100 or so DVDs at once. (I do multimedia production occasionally)

Besides, the drives are less than $100 a piece at newegg, which is cheap.
 
Vision864 said:
heheh c'mon i prefer the term internet Archive specialist.
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Theres not a single bit of porn on the 1.6TB in HDs that is my room, if thats what you're thinking. I legitimately produce DVDs on a commercial basis, both in cutting together video and encoding, but I run batches for my contacts far more often because I have always had dual highest-speed available DVD burners.
 
Xrave said:
I have a DVD drive and a DVD burner.

There's two reasons why I have this configuration:

1. Ripping DVD's is horrible on DVD burners. Check the speeds with any benchmarking utils. The speed of DVD burners (even if they're advertised at 8x or whatever) is usually multitudes slower (2x or 4x).
[/QUOTE=Xrave]

agreed...
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acascianelli said:
personally, i was thinking of getting 2x dvd burners and keep my dvd-rom, removing my cdrw. i backup alot of stuff and itd be nice to be able to burn 2 things at once, or 2 copies at once.
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Actually, that's an invalid reason for two burners. For starters, you'd need two different versions of the burning software (or two different burning software programs altogether), which may conflict with one another. Furthermore, most burning software supports burning to only one drive at a time. As a result of all that, the only way to burn two copies at the same time is... geting yourself an expensive dedicated pro CD/DVD duplicator.

By the way, there is a valid reason to have one burner and one reader-only optical drive: It will save you all that CD- or DVD-swapping. I tried copying a CD with just one drive, only to be told to swap between original source and destination CD-R disks as many as 32 times during the process. And because of all that swapping between the source CD and the destination CD-R, you'd better not fall asleep at all during the copying process. (But then again, those were the days of outdated 4x CD-R drives, slow PCs, relatively small hard drives and relatively small amounts of RAM; newer drives, faster PCs, gigantic hard drives and large memory sizes diminish the need for dual optical drives.)
 
jpmkm said:
Not all of us are fucking rich. Sure I would love to buy a dvd writer to replace my cdrw drive and dvd drive, but I don't have the money to spend on it. Also, if a cdrom drive is drawing power away from your cpu then you system is seriously fucked up. Now having a dvd drive, a cdrw drive, and a regular cdrom drive is pretty damn stupid.
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Hey, fuck you, buddy. :D ;)

Yeah, that's me. I'm one of those ten bay case people and the CD-ROM is my SCSI terminator and a pretty good rip drive (Plextor 20x)
 
Actually, some burning programs can natively handle simultaneous burning. Just don't expect to do it with the mundane stuff like Nero or Roxio software.

However, DVD-ROM drives are still the best for pure reading and ripping, just like pure CD-RW drives (ie. the last Plextor and LiteOn) are still way better than any DVD+/-RW drive for CD ripping and writing.
 
Neurofreeze said:
Actually, some burning programs can natively handle simultaneous burning. Just don't expect to do it with the mundane stuff like Nero or Roxio software.
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Nero does
 
I'd be willing to bet that many cd writing software packages have supported multiple writers for many years now.
 
Yep, Nero and RecordNow Max support multiple drives. I keep a Lite-On 52327S for CD-burning tasks, as it's burns are generally "cleaner" than the 40X burns on my 832S.
 
TechHead said:
Yep, Nero and RecordNow Max support multiple drives. I keep a Lite-On 52327S for CD-burning tasks, as it's burns are generally "cleaner" than the 40X burns on my 832S.
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As for Nero, I think only the full-price retail-purchased version (which costs $100 nowadays) support multiple burners. The one that's available for download (trial version), and then registered and activated, doesn't support simultaneous multiple burning.
 
Most prebuilt systems come with 2 optical drives, and there's good reason for it... a few good reasons actually...

1.) Faster and easier to do backups
2.) Some drives read certain media faster then others
3.) Some programs/games use more then one disc, and can keep two in at once
4.) Cause it looks cooler :rolleyes:
 
Neurofreeze said:
Actually, some burning programs can natively handle simultaneous burning. Just don't expect to do it with the mundane stuff like Nero or Roxio software.

However, DVD-ROM drives are still the best for pure reading and ripping, just like pure CD-RW drives (ie. the last Plextor and LiteOn) are still way better than any DVD+/-RW drive for CD ripping and writing.
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Yep, I bought a DVD+/-RW 8x drive, and tried compressing a DVD movie with the new drive first, then realized my secondary DVD-ROM drive is much faster at reading the DVD movie. Certain drives are more suited for certain things, and it's easy to load the one movie into the one drive, and the blank media into the other.
 
Why do I need six? ;)
I tend to keep the drives that I buy, and as I move and back up data a lot, I've come to try to see which drives read and write the best. I'd like my stored data to last. It's even become a hobby for me - I change the firmware on my 451S more often than I change my underwear. :eek:
 
when you have ~450cd's to copy to your HD
it doubles your speed to have 2 drives as oposed to one

also when your doing disc to disc copying....
it makes sense to have a rom drive and a burner

(moving my cd based anime collection to dvd-r)
 
These are the reasons why I have 2 Optical Drives opposed to having juse one.

1. Doing Disc to Disc copy is way faster than having the program rip the image onto some temp. HD space just to burn it back onto a cd which requires ejecting of the ripped disc and reinserting a blank, which is easily almost 2x longer than doing a straight D2D copy.

2. This is probably the biggest reason why I have 2 Optical drives opposed to having just one and that I think most people would agree to is: Wear and Tear. I own a DVD ROM which does all my reading, and I use my DVD WRITER to burn my cds and dvds. If I used my DVD WRITER to read and burn my discs i'm gonna wear it out way faster, and with a PLEXTOR you can see why I don't want to do that.

3. Some people use a combo drive or another cdwriter to cover the cd write speeds of some dvdwriters which burns cds at 24x or slower.

4. I would think most ppl posting here have a large enough PSU to cover a power drainage from an additional optical device. So power drainage is insignificate for an optical device for most parts.

5. Some drives are better than others. I know that my LiteOn 16x DVD rom has one of the best access times of all of the other dvdroms out there, and that the drive comes with a great community that produces good tools for this drive, and also this drive reads almost anything, even my GigaRec discs from my PLEXTOR.
 
This is the easiest question to answer in the world

Why have two optical drives?

Because we can ! ! !
 
i still remember when the cdrom first came out and acer had a computer, cant remeber the specs, but it featured DUAL double speed cdroms.
 
I don't believe you should really worry about a drive wearing out if you're not using it too heavily - I've had this LG 16x10x40x CD burner since late 2001 and it's still going strong - I still use 10x CD-RW discs on it to transfer files over to my portable MP3 CD player. I also use it with games that I play which require the CD to run. Although I will admit that certain drives are built better than others.
 
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