Poll: Do you still use optical drives?

[BFG10K]

So I just hooked up my optical drive for the first time since moving to Windows 10. It's probably been about 18 months since I last used it, and I purchased it back in 2009.

I ripped a new music CD I just purchased to my iTunes library. This is an LG SATA Bluray drive connected externally through a PCI eSATA bracket.

I also use it occasionally to access old original game media, and to watch Bluray/DVD movies. Also if I'm doing something that needs physical ISOs.

 

[repoman0]

I finally took out my internal bluray burner recently. Decided to keep it around with a cheap SATA to USB cable + power supply for a few use cases ..

1. I still buy CDs and like to copy flac to my pc
2. M-disc is a nice second or third tier backup method for photos

I guess realistically that is it. I don’t miss the annoying sound it makes every time I power the pc on or out of standby. Officially no mechanical storage left in my pc now that I replaced my raid1 data hard drives with a 4TB SSD + backups.

 

[quartzz1]

regularly....no. if I need it? well, 6 months ago I bought one of those cd-to-2.5mm adapters for my laptop. I've (obviously?) kept the cd drive. so for regular use I have a laptop with dual SSD, but I've got the disc drive if I need to connect it.

I barely use any optical nowadays....re installing windows is the only situation I'll probably need it for. can USB an external CD/DVD if I need it

the last time I had to read any kind of optical disc was...a few years back

 

[VirtualLarry]

Man. I still have 1000s of blank DVD disks. I went through a buying frenzy over 10 years ago when Newegg had sales on Ritek DVDs and I would buy hundreds at a time. Ah, wasted $$$.

I did the SAME thing. Got DVD spindles stacked up on top of all of my shelves, pretty-much. Archeologists are going to pick through my stuff, and it will be like the Pepsi commercial un-earthing a Coca-Cola bottle. "What is it???" "No idea!"

 

[Jimminy]

I did the SAME thing. Got DVD spindles stacked up on top of all of my shelves, pretty-much. Archeologists are going to pick through my stuff, and it will be like the Pepsi commercial un-earthing a Coca-Cola bottle. "What is it???" "No idea!"

Maybe you should try selling them. I have a DVD drive in an old refurb I'm using, but no blank disks. I did have a few CDs and it worked fine with those, but I don't know if it actually works with DVDs.

 

[sdifox]

Maybe you should try selling them. I have a DVD drive in an old refurb I'm using, but no blank disks. I did have a few CDs and it worked fine with those, but I don't know if it actually works with DVDs.

I have like 500 blank DVDs...

 

[Jimminy]

A real dumb question ... Are DVD disks the exact same size as CDs ? Will they fit in spindles and cases that were from the stone CD age???

I think I'm going to buy a small amount of dvd blanks from ebay just to see if this ancient dell drive works. The least expensive disks only come in shrink wrap, so I need to be sure they'll fit in my old (relic) cases

 

[sdifox]

A real dumb question ... Are DVD disks the exact same size as CDs ? Will they fit in spindles and cases that were from the stone CD age???

I think I'm going to buy a small amount of dvd blanks from ebay just to see if this ancient dell drive works. The least expensive disks only come in shrink wrap, so I need to be sure they'll fit in my old (relic) cases

I think they are the same size.

 

[Jimminy]

I think they are the same size.

Thanks sdifox! I'm going to buy some on ebay right now.

Next dumb question ... If I burn a data disk, how can I set the burn speed in win 10 ? I remember in the old days, some cheap audio CDs wouldn't burn reliably at higher speeds. I don't see any way to set this in the built-in windows drivers.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Thanks sdifox! I'm going to buy some on ebay right now.

Next dumb question ... If I burn a data disk, how can I set the burn speed in win 10 ? I remember in the old days, some cheap audio CDs wouldn't burn reliably at higher speeds. I don't see any way to set this in the built-in windows drivers.

Use ImgBurn, it's free-as-in-beer software. May get flagged by A/V for "OpenCandy", make sure to decline companion software offers.

www.imgburn.com

Another one is "CDBurnerXP", but I've never used that one.

 

[sdifox]

Thanks sdifox! I'm going to buy some on ebay right now.

Next dumb question ... If I burn a data disk, how can I set the burn speed in win 10 ? I remember in the old days, some cheap audio CDs wouldn't burn reliably at higher speeds. I don't see any way to set this in the built-in windows drivers.

I never used the built in burning program. Burning data disc at full speed is not really an issure, it's an audio cd problem.

 

[Jimminy]

Use ImgBurn, it's free-as-in-beer software. May get flagged by A/V for "OpenCandy", make sure to decline companion software offers.

www.imgburn.com

Another one is "CDBurnerXP", but I've never used that one.

Thanks Larry and Sdifox. I bought these old 8x speed disks on ebay:

Philips Blank DVD + R 8x 4.7 GB 23 discs | eBay

Philips Blank DVD + R 8x 4.7 GB 23 discs. Shipped with USPS Media Mail.

www.ebay.com

They seem to be "+dvd" as opposed to "-dvd", whatever that means. But HWINFO indicates this old drive can read and write the minus and plus disks. LOL Next I will go bowling with Fred Flintstone !!!

 

[Stiff Clamp]

Yep, got a blu-ray internal drive for playing movies on DVD, or ripping/playing music CDs. Kind of limits my choice of PC case though - needs to have a drive bay.

I never got into storing data to optical discs ...

 

[ultimatebob]

The last three computers I ordered (two laptops and a gaming desktop) didn't come with any optical storage. DVD's are dead to me!

 

[bigboxes]

Man. I still have 1000s of blank DVD disks. I went through a buying frenzy over 10 years ago when Newegg had sales on Ritek DVDs and I would buy hundreds at a time. Ah, wasted $$$.

I wouldn't say it's wasted. It was just the latest tech at the time. I burned thousands of discs back in the day.Then I decided to go diskless.

My wife was always resistant to change. But ever so often, I would just start to make changes in how I stored data. With flash drives, storage on your phone, storage in the cloud and my home server that connects to all my devices, I really don't have a need for an optical drive. Occasionally, I'll want to run some older disc, but that is so WinXP days.

I mean, we don't need them for music. We don't need them for movies. We don't need them to put a copy of software or drivers on them any longer.

I have an LG Blu-Ray burner in my main rig. I plan on using it to make ISOs of my videos (DVD/BD) when I finish my home server. That's when I will finally box up my discs and put them in storage instead of my living room.

 

[mikeford]

What has damaged, I won't say killed optical, are streaming services, both legal and illegal. We used to buy and rip media several times a month, usually used, but with netflix and prime video, Pandora, youtube etc, why bother?

Still as I said in my first post on this topic, I will be buying a burner for BDxl m-disc, to get one more stage of redundant on important data.

 

[quartzz1]

A real dumb question ... Are DVD disks the exact same size as CDs ? Will they fit in spindles and cases that were from the stone CD age???

I think I'm going to buy a small amount of dvd blanks from ebay just to see if this ancient dell drive works. The least expensive disks only come in shrink wrap, so I need to be sure they'll fit in my old (relic) cases

ok right without reading new replies...

diameter wise yes. 120mm. thickness wise, they are a slightly different manufacturing process. CD's are a thin layer of reflective on substrate which is more or less 1.2mm (yes that was a google)

DVD''s-writeables at least, are more of a two-seperate-thin-layers (0.6mm each) bonded together. source - I used to fix machines which wrote 500 discs at a time. the robot picker arms which picked up the centre hole, the manufacturing plastic mold could be a factor

 

[KentState]

Use my LG UHD drive often to backup media. Picked up a NexStar DX enclosure so I can use it over USB.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I just bought an internal SATA Blu Ray drive. I haven't had an internal optical drive in years, looks a little funny now....but works like a charm.