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How obsolete are optical discs? Do you still use them?

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I just burned all (?) of the new Debian and Ubuntu desktop ISOs. If I had to keep a flash drive for every new distro variant, I would have quite a handful. Not to mention, the DVDs are much easier to label.
 
VirtualLarry said:
I just burned all (?) of the new Debian and Ubuntu desktop ISOs. If I had to keep a flash drive for every new distro variant, I would have quite a handful. Not to mention, the DVDs are much easier to label.
Click to expand...

Why do you need them at all when they can be downloaded at any time?
 
"a flash drive"
Does that mean "to boot"? One could have all images on NAS and netboot with PXE.


I have optical for ripping audio.
 
And many folks do not use computers. The industry still markets new music on opticals. Bottom line is, opticals may be obsolescent in the geek world, but they are still the prime format in the entertainment world.
 
Carson Dyle said:
Why do you need them at all when they can be downloaded at any time?
Click to expand...

If I'm at a customer site, there may not be the facilities or the means to download the appropriate ISO, especially there may not be time. Time is money, after all. They may have a Windows install full of malware, preventing the browser from operating, or they may be "borrowing" wifi, and have a slow connection.
 
VirtualLarry said:
I just burned all (?) of the new Debian and Ubuntu desktop ISOs. If I had to keep a flash drive for every new distro variant, I would have quite a handful. Not to mention, the DVDs are much easier to label.
Click to expand...

I have a pile of 2GB flash drives with custom labels to handle that. MUCH better performance in Live mode than with a disk.
 
Well, I've got some more spindles of DVD-Rs coming in soon. So if they do become obsolete, at least I'll be stocked up.

Newegg had a ShellShocker deal too, today (still available for 1:20hrs), for two Sony 100-spindle DVD-Rs, BOGO, so $27.99 for 200 discs total.

I'm not a big fan of Sony's DVDs, their current ones are I believe MBI Made in India. Generally to be avoided, I think.
 
I rarely use them. The last PC I built I did not even bother putting in an optical drive. It's running Linux so I can just install OSes through USB.

If Bluray discs were not so expensive they'd make great archive backup media as they can hold a half decent amount of space, but hard drives are WAY cheaper per GB.
 
Red Squirrel said:
If Bluray discs were not so expensive they'd make great archive backup media as they can hold a half decent amount of space, but hard drives are WAY cheaper per GB.
Click to expand...

A 10-spindle of 6X BD-R discs was recently $5 at Newegg. That's equivalent to a 250GB HDD, for $5. I disagree that HDDs are cheaper than BD-R discs. They may be more convenient, and faster for random-access and re-writing, but they are not cheaper.

A 50-spindle of 6X BD-R discs is $20. That's a 1250GB HDD for $20. The cheapest 1TB HDD that I've seen is $40. BD-R is less than half the price of a HDD.

I bought a 5TB USB3.0 desktop external HDD for $124.99 at Newegg on sale. $125 would get you six 50-spindles of BD-R and one 10-spindle. That's 310 BD-R discs, times 25GB ea., that's 7750GB worth of storage for the same price.
 
I was wistfully looking at the BR recordable disc prices here as a result of either this or the other floppy thread, then I remembered that I need to factor in the cost of the writer drive as well 🙁
 
I rip a lot of stuff with mine and burn stuff for the kids.

Why wouldnt I have one? Its not like I'm short of space in my desktop and they aren't exactly expensive.
 
mikeymikec said:
I was wistfully looking at the BR recordable disc prices here as a result of either this or the other floppy thread, then I remembered that I need to factor in the cost of the writer drive as well 🙁
Click to expand...

$40 at Newegg for a 14X LG BD-RE XL drive. At least, that's the lowest I've seen it. It's normally $55.
 
I picked up one of those lg drives from my local tigerdirect a few months ago for cheap. I missed the $35 sale they had on them earlier so if you've got a td near you pay attention to the sales.
 
VirtualLarry said:
$40 at Newegg for a 14X LG BD-RE XL drive. At least, that's the lowest I've seen it. It's normally $55.
Click to expand...

Except I live in the UK, and even though the exchange rate suggests that the number of UKP should be fewer than the USD price, it rarely is. Instead I go by the quick and easy method of swapping the $ for £ for a reasonably accurate guestimate.
 
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VirtualLarry said:
I just burned all (?) of the new Debian and Ubuntu desktop ISOs. If I had to keep a flash drive for every new distro variant, I would have quite a handful. Not to mention, the DVDs are much easier to label.
Click to expand...

I have a copy of Ubuntu, I made to disc I use to for other computers.
 
My desktop has a CD/DVD drive. I burned a recovery disk a couple months back. I think that prior to that, my last burn was over a year ago. I use the CD drive to rip CDs on a regular basis. I used to have my photo archive on CDs. I copied it all back off the CDs and onto a hard drive (backed up, of course). I rarely will rent a movie on DVD and watch that on the desktop. Games I mostly buy as downloads.

My personal laptop and work laptop have no CD drives. At home, I can tap the CD drive on my desktop from the laptop if needed. At work, I would have to track down an external drive.

As long as music is more available on CDs than on legitimate FLAC or other lossless download, I will have a CD drive.
 
I want to check my "new" DVDRW drive to see if it can burn properly. Any suggestions? I am thinking of Win10TP or Mint.
 
VirtualLarry said:
A 10-spindle of 6X BD-R discs was recently $5 at Newegg. That's equivalent to a 250GB HDD, for $5. I disagree that HDDs are cheaper than BD-R discs. They may be more convenient, and faster for random-access and re-writing, but they are not cheaper.

A 50-spindle of 6X BD-R discs is $20. That's a 1250GB HDD for $20. The cheapest 1TB HDD that I've seen is $40. BD-R is less than half the price of a HDD.

I bought a 5TB USB3.0 desktop external HDD for $124.99 at Newegg on sale. $125 would get you six 50-spindles of BD-R and one 10-spindle. That's 310 BD-R discs, times 25GB ea., that's 7750GB worth of storage for the same price.
Click to expand...

Those might have been special deals at the time, all the ones I seen are like $50 for a small spindle of maybe 30 discs. In in Canada too so we get royally screwed on tech prices here.
 
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