Question Full Tower with a slot for Optical drive

[Devdeep]

Need to upgrade to a Full Tower with at least one 5.25inch bay (for Optical drive). Budget is around £300 max please.

 

[aigomorla]

is there a reason why you absolutely need an optical?
optical are being phased out.
Even driver CD's are completely useless as going to the manufacturers website and downloading the updated drivers is always the preferred method.

If you need an optical i always recommend just going the USB route.

That being said.... (i am going to link US vendors, you can search at your preferred store for the brand and model number)

The fractal R5 has 2 x 5.25 inch bays. Its an excellent case for being silent and having good air flow. Its a Mid Tower, but its probably easier to work with then some full towers.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352048

Thermaltake Core X71, is also a fairly good case. It seems like it has good airflow and tempered glass on top.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA8EF5VJ0252

This RaidMAX looks interesting...
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9ZN7CE5136


You would need to probably find older cases. Some brand to look for is Lian Li, and Silverstone.
As i said opticals and 5.25inch ports are all being phased out. So finding them is hard now, and will probably be near impossible in the future.

Again it would be in your best interest most likely to find a usb3.0 optical for future builds and not rely on the case to support the optical.

 

[Devdeep]

Thanks for this. So, the better option is to go for a case without optical drive bay but if needed, buy an external usb 3 drive?

 

[aigomorla]

Thanks for this. So, the better option is to go for a case without optical drive bay but if needed, buy an external usb 3 drive?

most definitely... there are a lot better and superior cases which dont have the drive bay, but have way better airflow as well as features.

 

[Fallen Kell]

I'm still of the mindset of getting an optical drive. Seriously for a Full Tower case, if there isn't a spot for an optical I think there is something wrong (I mean, it would have to be able to fit 20+ internal hard drives for a Full Tower to not have space for an optical drive). That said, I still keep a floppy drive in my system... so I might just be a little old school (you would be surprised how many times I have still used it in the last 5 years, also grant it has a combo card reader which I do use almost every few days).

 

[aigomorla]

I'm still of the mindset of getting an optical drive. Seriously for a Full Tower case, if there isn't a spot for an optical I think there is something wrong (I mean, it would have to be able to fit 20+ internal hard drives for a Full Tower to not have space for an optical drive).

lol...


has a gazillion drive bays.. even hotswap... but 0 optical... lol....

Im telling you.. optical are getting phased out... as nands are getting cheaper and cheaper and are a whole lot faster.

 

[Rayman30]

What about the Corsair 760T?

 

[deustroop]

I have a use for cd drives as well. I make music disks for the house and car ( very old school) and much early data I have from day one is saved to disks.The ThermalTake Core V 71 , somewhat like the X 71 noted above, is the case I use. It has dual optical caddies and is superior in many ways, like air flow, drive expansion, usb support, cooling support etc.
https://www.thermaltake.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00002231

 

[piasabird]

Some people like the Corsair 200R. It has good cable management but no air filters. It is a little on the large side. It has mounts for both 2.5 SSD's and 3.5 hard drives. Corsair also has a 100R that might work with a side window.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139018

 

[tarmc]

Maybe an air 540 would be a good option? Its a cube but has 2 drive bays

 

[fluxdeity]

.

 

[bonehead123]

Need to upgrade to a Full Tower with at least one 5.25inch bay (for Optical drive). Budget is around £300 max please.

THermaltake TT900 Supertower has a 5.25" bay in the front. Granted it is huge, but is a dream to work in with tons of space for everything, wires, drives, cooling (air, AIO CLC, and/or water) and just about anything else you might wanna throw into it

Last time I looked they were running right around $229 in the US.... but I got mine last year for $169 with rebates, a coupon, and free shipping

 

[Oyeve]

I have the Corsair Obsidian 750D primarily because it has 3 5.25 bays and can accommodate 10 SSD (or six HDD) and I already have 7 SSDs in there and a CD/DVD burner and a BR burner. Its a really good case with great wire management and a clear side panel. I also have 6 RGB fans going as well.

 

[bruceb]

I would normally want a CD/DVD-DL drive in my computer tower as well. But on some computers with Windows 10 the drive will randomly open by itself. And it is not just for one or two brands. I think the issue is with Microsoft and they refuse to admit it or come up with a definitive fix. Uninstalling the drive in device manager does not help, as windows will just reload the driver next time it boots up. So the best bet would be the external USB 3 DVD drive, especially since just about all current computers can boot from a Thumb Drive if needed for say Acronis or other purpose.

 

[VirtualLarry]

But on some computers with Windows 10 the drive will randomly open by itself.

While most of my PCs with Windows 10 don't have DVD or BR drives, I do have a few. And they've been through pretty-much all of the various Win10 versions, since the beginning.

And I have NEVER had that happen.

However, if you click on a drive letter in File Explorer, that happens to be an optical drive, that is EMPTY, Windows 10 ever-so-helpfully EJECTs the tray, so that you can place a disc in it.

If this is happening, without you clicking, may I suggest that you scan your system heavily for a virus or rootkit?

 

[bruceb]

It is a Toshiba laptop and while the idea of a virus or rootkit is good, if you do a search for windows randomly opening the dvd drive, you will see other people also have the issue. There does not seem to be a definite fix nor is it confined to one brand of computer. I highly doubt all the complainers picked up virus that does that. Also not sure if that happens on computers with full size dvd drives or if it is just the cheap chinese laptop drives

 

[PingSpike]

If you actually use your optical drive a lot, you're giving up something going with the external USB ones. While USB 2.0 should have enough bandwidth to max out a DVD drives speed, its not clear it does for say BR as max speed. But worse, USB drives without external power are limited by the power over USB which does greatly limit their speeds. I didn't think that was true but doing some research suggests its the power requirements that hurt those simple USB externals more than the bandwidth of the bus.

USB 3.0 and external enclosures with their own power source can work around that but in the end an internal SATA drive is probably the easiest and cheapest way to get the full speed.

That said, not everyone uses an optical anymore and for sporadic use I've found those simple external USBs are good option.

 

[bruceb]

I would agree. And if I wanted to, I would create a media server, load all the DVD onto it and use it that way. And I do use a powered USB (currently 2.0) hub as my old desktop does not do USB 3 ... But when it gets upgraded later on, then I will need to get a USB 3 Hub

 

[rchunter]

I have LG BU40 in a Vantec slim case and it's pretty good. It will rip at 6x powered from a USB3.0 port. It's great for portability but for a home type setup I would probably choose a different internal blu ray burner.