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Optical Drive really needed?

zod96

zod96

Platinum Member
Building my new I7 2600K system this weekend. And I was thinking that an optical drive may be something I don't need. I install Windows 7 from a thumb drive and I also have an external dvd drive if needed. All my software that I use is either downloaded or on my thumb drive to begin with. The one game I play is Bad Company 2 which I got from direct2drive so its downloaded not on a disc. So I would say I use an optical drive pretty much only when I install windows 7 that's it. I don't burn any disc's or media. Are optical drives a thing of the past with thumb drives now and direct downloads...
 
You never plan on backing up family pictures to external media? You never plan on burning a music cd for your truck / car?

My dvd burner serves 3 main purposes:

Burn utilities to disk for other people, like malware bytes and free antivirus, that way they dont have to download them.

Backup my family pictures and videos to an external media. Every 3 or 4 months I will burn copies of my family pictures and video, and then give the DVD to my mom and dad to keep at their house. That way I have a remote backup of all of my home pictures and videos. When yout start backing up 4, 5 or 6 gigs of family pictures, thumb drives can get expensive. I buy dual layer dvds and can fit 8 gigs on each disk. 8 gig thumb drives are a lot more expensive them 8 gig DVDs.

Then there is always the random music cd for my truck.
 
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I will always cherish my optical drive's ability to make coasters and quit working after 3 months.

I've only ever had one tank...an NEC 3550A that still works to this day, but it's IDE.
 
That's just it, I have a very good external dvd burner. So if need be I just plug it in and go. I use my optical drive probably 1% of the time...
 
zod96 said:
That's just it, I have a very good external dvd burner.
Click to expand...

I think you already have your answer. If you have an external drive, do you really need an internal drive?

I see no reason to have 2 DVD drives - just use your external drive.
 
I almost never use my DVD writer. I already have a couple external ones as well. For my next build I'm going to skip the optical drive.

I wish more and more laptops would omit them as well to save on weight.
 
They're cheap enough that I have OptiArcs in nearly all my systems and old favorites (BenQ DW1640, Pioneer DVR-112L, etc.) in the rest.
 
Vincent said:
I almost never use my DVD writer. I already have a couple external ones as well. For my next build I'm going to skip the optical drive.

I wish more and more laptops would omit them as well to save on weight.
Click to expand...

slim optical drives weight almost nothing, its not really weight you're saving when omitting the drive, its optimization of space, which is much more important IMO
 
Vincent said:
I almost never use my DVD writer. I already have a couple external ones as well. For my next build I'm going to skip the optical drive.

I wish more and more laptops would omit them as well to save on weight.
Click to expand...

ive been doing this for years, i have a external samsung burner/reader i use when i need to use optical media. Only my HTPC had a internal DVD drive.
 
For SFF builders, every cubic inch of space is important. All of my games are on Steam, so I've reduced my dependency on optical drives.
 
Yep, more and more things are handled by the cloud. I purposely try to order all of my games on Steam. I will never lose a disc, CD-key, or whatever. My library is available on any computer I want it to be on. All of my music and movies are digitally stored on my WHS.
 
See that is my point. Floppy drives are a thing of the past. And with external dvd drives and thumb drives and now alot of software being down loadable the only real need would be to burn a music disc or something, and the external drive can handle that. I like the idea of having less cables and more room in my case, makes it look better and gives it better air flow...
 
it is getting to be a bit like the floppy we kept around a decade after it was dead. i get games off steam, stuff installs from usb sticks... not all that much uses it. only if u burn a lot of dvds is it useful.
 
I'm doing an i7 2600K build soon, and I was thinking the same thing.

The only purpose my DVDRW drive served was to burn DVD rips to DVD to watch in the living room. But now that I have my Boxee Box setup to stream all my media, I really don't see myself needing an internal optical drive.

Is it easy to install Windows 7 off an external optical drive? Or flash drive/external HDD?
 
^ Speaking of which, you might want an IDE / SATA attached optical drive for installing XP, since the installer does a USB reset midway through the installation.
 
I use my DVD drive once in a blue moon. But if I had to dig around my office and hook up an external player once in a blue moon, thats still too often.
The only practical reason to not have one is if you are obsessed with making a tiny HTPC system that was exclusively for streaming or something similar.
OR, if you were making for people to use at school or work and you didnt want them inserting DVD's. Or your kids.

Good dual layer drives are too damn cheap to simply ignore, even in 2011.
 
you're going to have to reformat your HDD and you're going to plug in your flash drive and there's gonna be a ton of bit rot and your only install of windows will be hosed and I bet your external USB Drive may not work in BIOS for installing from a disc.
 
i dont miss an internal laptop dvd burner. theyre slow anyway, you might as well have a usb external one (which adds a lot of flexibility in itself).

if i need to burn anything i use my htpc. saves a ton of time. the external burner that i keep in my laptops bag is usually just used for reading. but when i need it, i can burn with it too. and i can put it on any pc easily and make that a burning machine... the real key is to have motherboards and laptops that can boot off the cdrom right in the bios. which most do as of the last few years....

i also agree that most internal burners arent very good anyway...
 
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wirednuts said:
i dont miss an internal laptop dvd burner. theyre slow anyway, you might as well have a usb external one (which adds a lot of flexibility in itself).

if i need to burn anything i use my htpc. saves a ton of time. the external burner that i keep in my laptops bag is usually just used for reading. but when i need it, i can burn with it too. and i can put it on any pc easily and make that a burning machine... the real key is to have motherboards and laptops that can boot off the cdrom right in the bios. which most do as of the last few years....

i also agree that most internal burners arent very good anyway...
Click to expand...

Something is wrong with your system. A Serial ATA bus is considerably faster than a USB 2 bus. And that doesnt matter cuz the fastest DVD burner in the world is much slower than either of them. Me thinks your particular model was just a crappy drive.
 
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