Do you have an optical drive in your main computer?

Do you have an optical drive


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    11
  • Poll closed .

Crystallas

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Just out of curiosity, a regular poll. The debate kind of answers itself in the poll.

An optical drive is a CD/DVD/Bluray drive.
 

Unannounced Fart

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Yes, I do. I used it to install Windows 10 when I built my rig. I also need to occasionally use the CD drive for work purposes. Other than that, it would never be used.
 

fatbeard

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I'm putting one in my new PC, mainly because my wife has a lot of old data/pictures stored on DVDs. I still have some hard-copy games, but I'm slowly purging as Steam sales occur.
 

Crystallas

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I have backups on optical. Estimated 6PB of important data. Things like website archives/databases, various projects, family pictures/videos/audio, and whatever miscellaneous. The media I use is all ALT 100 year certified or better. To lesser extent of importance, all the software, movies, audio cds, and video games(if you didn't know, there is no such thing as a 100% accurate rom dump for cartridge media and no such thing as a 100% accurate disk image with most forms of DRM, although 98-99.99% is damn good and way better than previous eras format generation-loss.)

So what I see happening, is one day being complacent, ignoring this segment of storage, then in 30 years or so it's going to be a big headache to recover media because the high end optical drives are long gone and supplemented with barely usable ones just to fill a niche in the market. Right now, good optical drives are still cheap, SATA(and to same extend PCIe bused), PATA, SCSI(all) all can be converted and retain full accuracy(maybe not speed) to other formats, including USB.


Because of that, because I know I can still find a lot of uses for optical media, every machine I buy, I go ahead and get a decent optical drive. The downside is another 12v mechanical device that consumes space and requires maintenance and post recognition for most motherboards. Then when we have independent ALT ratings on media that start to consistently beat that 100 year mark, I'll swap over completely. ALT stands for accelerated life test, because it's a best guess using age simulation environments. And cloud storage for everything is full of holes and issues(unless your archive data isn't valuable).

Yes, I do. I used it to install Windows 10 when I built my rig. I also need to occasionally use the CD drive for work purposes. Other than that, it would never be used.

This is a good point. While USB/Flash is better for speed, having your store bought OS disc is going to outlast a USB drive sitting in a drawer. Sure, these are becoming archaic methods and I don't install anything from optical on non-legacy systems, but the general rule of thumb for data is BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP! and for an OS install, that is as good as any of a backup method.
 

Monsieur Tirets

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no and i dont miss it. my case doesnt even have a slot for one. but when i built this pc i got an external dvd player/burner just for installing a few things and to have just in case.
 

fatbeard

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no and i dont miss it. my case doesnt even have a slot for one. but when i built this pc i got an external dvd player/burner just for installing a few things and to have just in case.

I thought about getting an external player and getting a case with no 5.25 cage, but the more things I'm able to put inside the computer the fewer things there are for a two year old to fuck with.
 

Crystallas

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Externals are handy to have. I populate enough HDD/SDDs in my cases that these bayless cases are strictly and subjectively aesthetics. Practically, I find uses for at least one of those bays in a main system, so having none is a deal breaker. Although in a non-main, function specific side system I'll eventually go that route.
 

AussieBear

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yup.. still have plenty of games on disk... dvd library... finally parted ways with the cd collection in the move ...

os on usb though...

fuck the industry trying to enslave me into non disc ways
 

xer0h0ur

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I have an external bluray burner I use sparingly.
 

botfly10

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Don't have one in any of my PCs. Though I do have an external usb CD drive. Only thing I have used it for in the last 5 years is installing windows office off a disc I got from work with unlimited licenses.
 

ShiftyDevil

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Used it to install windows, will eventually use it to install a Linux distro (probably ubuntu) so I can dual boot. Other than that only time it's been used was to transfer pictures from disc to dropbox that I got digitized at Costco.
 

Crystallas

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With my family having more and more health issues. Doctor offices are giving us more CDs of personal test records. From DICOM files to huge history dumps, the old CD-rom drive has been unavoidable in that regard.

Especially now with M-Disc backups being the best long term backup format on the market. I thought I was close to building a main rig without an optical drive, but there is absolutely no way right now, and it makes next to no sense to just rely on an external or one of those ultra unreliable laptop slim models.
 

AussieBear

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i rarely use mine, but i still use it.. wish internal blu rays were 10 bucks so id have a reason to start a bluray collection
 
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