Optical drive survey

[thedangerine]

Hey everyone its ya boy coming at you with the hottest new survey on everyones favorite computer part, thats right you guessed it the optical drive. Fill this out, tell your friends, share it on your favorite social media website, text it to your boss, dm it to your second cousin, mail the link to your grandmother (and call her because she'll really appreciate to just get a chance to talk to you.) Contact your local news station and state representative or your areas equivalent. This is super important as the world needs to know!

 

All jokes aside just curious on everyones take on the optical drive in a time when it appears it may become obsolete or potentially get a rebirth with new technology and higher capacity discs. And please do spread this around as the more people fill this out the better the results will represent how the world truly feels about the worlds loneliest computer component

[thedangerine]

Ok question 2 was supposed to have an option that said, "Like Linus in season 5 of scrapyard wars I will fight to keep it in my computer." not sure what happened to it so I guess like this reply or hit agree if you feel that way about it (I certainly do)

[TetraSky]

Love my lightscribe DVD writer.... Or at least I did when I used it for the last time like 6 years ago when I burned the Windows 8 Pro ISO with a "cool" lightscribed image on it, after I had bought the upgrade license for like 15$ back then on a promo.... And quickly reverted back to Windows 7 because it was awful, that was 15$ in the trash.

Seriously, my optical drive was somewhat useful when I first built my PC, but since then, it's gone pretty much unused.

 

Speaking of Lightscribe, it's nice and certainly a lot better than just drawing with a sharpie on the disc, but it's utter shit when you compare it to a printable disc. It's literally one color and shades of it.(better than nothing and you can make cool stuff... but... yeah)
That said, I literally have a spool of like 95 unused lightscribe DVDs left, that I bought in 2010. (pack of 100) .... I was expecting to be using a lot of discs. Turns out, I only needed 5. 

[GoodBytes]

For those who don't know Lightscribe:

 

[circeseye]

i actually have a couple of old internal dvd writers....IF i ever need one i just use a sata to usb adapter. but i think i used it once (for someone else) in the last 5 years or so.

[Automobili3XF]

I have a Lite-On BluRay writer on my machine, which i paid half the price on a local store because they had it stuck for over 3 years, recently i started keeping my more important backups in BluRay discs due to low cost, availability of the discs and ease of use.

About lightscribe, right when i joined the forums i had an Asus lightscribe compatible DVD burner, i used that burner to DEATH and never used lightscribe a day in my life, never had the need to.

Also, one thing that bothers me immensely about modern PC cases is the increasing rate that 5.25' bays are disappearing from the mainstream, specially when it comes to high end cases, i think some brands should keep that as an option for the buyer.

[Princess Luna]

I use a CD/DVD Internal drive as an external drive (took it from an old laptop and will connect to the PC on need).

 

I often only use it to rip some musics to a CD for the car, yeah I know we're on the USB era but my father and I are a bit of old school when it comes to car music and we still appreciate old fashion CDs.

 

And that's it.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

This poll is heavily biased, which is typical of most polls on forums. In the second section, the first selection is, "Its good to have at least some way to read/write CD's or DVD's just in case." That automatically assumes everyone only uses optical drives occasionally. However, there are still a surprising number of people who still use them frequently, such as me; there is no "just in case". I buy the vast majority of my music on CD, both because CDs usually have higher quality music files than downloads, which are usually 128Kbps mp3s, and have the information that appear in the CD jackets and inserts, valuable for correctly tagging the tracks I rip (downloads are usually horribly tagged). The same holds true for movies except I do not download any movies; I only buy DVDs and BDs.

 

Section 3 assumes people use their optical drives at a consistent rate. Actually, that is rarely true. I tend to do my ripping in batches (I also tend to buy my music and movies in batches, especially movies when stores restock their bargain bins). I typically go a few months without doing any ripping, then rip half a dozen to a dozen but even that isn't consistent. This section would be better labeled for average usage.

 

Moving on, I prefer internal optical drives since they tend to be better quality, they do not take up any extra desktop space when in use, are ready to go at any time with no setup required, and are usually much faster. 

 

I haven't written to a disc in a few years since I do not use them for storing data, preferring SSDs and USB flash drives for that. I used to burn music discs for use in the 6 CD changer in my F150 but the changer jammed a few years ago and I haven't gotten around to replacing the changer since the radio still works and I don't travel as much as I used to. All my optical drive use is read only although I retain write capability "just in case" (also, write capable drives are usually better quality even for read only operations).

 

I have Light Scribe capability and liked it but I didn't use it much since it was so slow and stopped using it fairly quickly (which is a moot point since I no longer burn discs). Printable discs were not an option for me since they required ink jet printers and you couldn't even give me one of those abominations except for target practice.

 

[Dredgy]

I have 2 internal drives so I can read from one and write to the other directly. The reader is bkunray, but the writer is DVD only. 

I still use optical as long term storage and I like to watch 3D Blurays every now and then.

 

I do not use lightscribe anymore but I used it ALOT when it first came out as it was in the days of burning rental DVDs for yourself, so it was always good to make the burned DVD feel legit by inscribing an image over the whole disc. I used to print my own case covers as well.

[thedangerine]

34 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

This poll is heavily biased, which is typical of most polls on forums. In the second section, the first selection is, "Its good to have at least some way to read/write CD's or DVD's just in case." That automatically assumes everyone only uses optical drives occasionally. However, there are still a surprising number of people who still use them frequently, such as me; there is no "just in case". I buy the vast majority of my music on CD, both because CDs usually have higher quality music files than downloads, which are usually 128Kbps mp3s, and have the information that appear in the CD jackets and inserts, valuable for correctly tagging the tracks I rip (downloads are usually horribly tagged). The same holds true for movies except I do not download any movies; I only buy DVDs and BDs.

 

Section 3 assumes people use their optical drives at a consistent rate. Actually, that is rarely true. I tend to do my ripping in batches (I also tend to buy my music and movies in batches, especially movies when stores restock their bargain bins). I typically go a few months without doing any ripping, then rip half a dozen to a dozen but even that isn't consistent. This section would be better labeled for average usage.

 

Moving on, I prefer internal optical drives since they tend to be better quality, they do not take up any extra desktop space when in use, are ready to go at any time with no setup required, and are usually much faster. 

 

I haven't written to a disc in a few years since I do not use them for storing data, preferring SSDs and USB flash drives for that. I used to burn music discs for use in the 6 CD changer in my F150 but the changer jammed a few years ago and I haven't gotten around to replacing the changer since the radio still works and I don't travel as much as I used to. All my optical drive use is read only although I retain write capability "just in case" (also, write capable drives are usually better quality even for read only operations).

 

I have Light Scribe capability and liked it but I didn't use it much since it was so slow and stopped using it fairly quickly (which is a moot point since I no longer burn discs). Printable discs were not an option for me since they required ink jet printers and you couldn't even give me one of those abominations except for target practice.

 

Did you miss this

16 hours ago, AdvancedMicroDisapointment said:

Ok question 2 was supposed to have an option that said, "Like Linus in season 5 of scrapyard wars I will fight to keep it in my computer." not sure what happened to it so I guess like this reply or hit agree if you feel that way about it (I certainly do)

Also what is wrong with the third question? some people did say they use it almost everyday and as expected most people said a few times a year, how is that not a fair question?

[Norseman4]

I always like o have physical disks for both music and video, so for all of my builds in the past, and the foreseeable future I will always have at least on ODD.

[MPenten]

Law enforcements and lawyers still use CD's, so thats one way why u need an optical drive.

[BinaryGrind]

3 minutes ago, MPenten said:

Law enforcements and lawyers still use CD's, so thats one way why u need an optical drive.

100 times this. I run an MSP. One of my clients is a legal firm and I've had to setup a "ripping" station for them since they've all moved to thin and light laptops/ultrabooks. I swear they get at least 4 or 5 new CDs/DVDs and the occasional BD every week. 

[thedangerine]

shouts to the floatplane gang homies who came here after the stream

[PX4XKkRWMM]

I recently bought a bunch of music CD's because I wanted to have the music and buying the singed CD's directly from the official merchandise shop was the the cheapest option. I think the digital download alternatives (from other sites) was about three times what I payed even including shipping, which was a bit less than half the cost.

 

So yeah it was very useful to still have a working optical drive. However, I did have a little bit of a panic/shock when I first tried to read the CD's and they all showed as empty. Turned out there was some dust on the lens.

[Crunchy Dragon]

My laptop has an internal Blu-Ray/CD/DVD drive, no LightScribe.

Because there isn't an answer that adequately applies to me for No. 2, I can't answer the poll.

 

I don't have it "just in case" I need to read/write a CD/DVD, I've written CDs a few times and I read DVDs occasionally as well.

One of the main reasons I like having it is because I still buy most of my music on CDs. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to have physical copies. They can't corrupt, it doesn't matter about losing it in a reinstall, and I like to have lots of backups of my music anyway.

[Tristerin]

I have 2 ODD drives in the parts pile collecting dust I don't throw away because...what if lol.  I have 1 Blu Ray and 1 DVD/CD RW drive in my HTPC...cause it has the space and I was able to reduce down my parts pile.  Ive actually only watched 1 Blu Ray on the drive...no point, as we stream everything.

[kelvinhall05]

I would keep an optical drive in my PC if my case supported it.

[Fasauceome]

Just wrote a Linux CD for my old server, not everything supports USB booting and I gotta do something with all my old CDs or they'll all go to waste.

[Virus__]

Wow. LightScribe.. It's been a long ass time since I used that (10+ years) is it still available with ODD? Because you needed to buy specific blank CD's/DVD's to use with it. It was handy for me back in high school for my year 12 projects in multi media, was able to create something that looked good for the DVD's I was putting my HSC projects on that wasn't a crappy printed label that can get caught in ODD.

 

But anyway. I have a Slim ODD from Silverstone in my build. Just a regular DVD drive, cause I still buy music CD's and would like someway to rip them.

 

17 hours ago, AdvancedMicroDisapointment said:

shouts to the floatplane gang homies who came here after the stream

What live stream, what did I miss?!

[ObviousFelon]

1 minute ago, Virus__ said:

What live stream, what did I miss?!

They did a live stream to show off their "basically complete copy of youtube play button" from Bilibili, and now we're all lurking in the floatplane live chat waiting for Wan Show

[Virus__]

Just now, ObviousFelon said:

They did a live stream to show off their "basically complete copy of youtube play button" from Bilibili, and now we're all lurking in the floatplane live chat waiting for Wan Show

Ohhh right cool. That'll be on YouTube to rewatch later as I have work shortly >_>

[TortugaAtomico]

 Lightscribe it's been a long while someone mentions it. I do retro gaming so some disks are are used. 

[thedangerine]

Who's here from WAN show?

[TheGeek2448]

I back-up my Blu-rays and DVD (and I'm not just saying that to justify pirating), compress them, and put them on my Plex server. I truly believe owning my media (TV, Movies, and Music). Also,  Blu-rays are way better quality than any streaming service and you get commentary audio tracks extras.