Whither the Portable Optical Drive?

"The MacBook Air and the Ultrabook come without a piece of hardware that's been a mainstay in laptops for a long time — the optical drive," says a piece at CNET. "Maybe because they really aren't that necessary anymore." I would have thought otherwise a few years ago, but traveling in the meantime with a small netbook was certainly handy. Since that machine died, I think I've used the optical drive in its low-end laptop successor a grand total of once, which was to test its wireless compatibility with a Live CD Linux distro.

Comments

Speak for yourself

[unity100]

There are a lot of situations in which people need to use optical drives on laptops. The uses range from gaming to application installs, to backup.

Only having to use your portable with alive cd to 'test wireless compatibility' tells me that you are a sysadmin, or another i.t. professional. chances are high that you rarely do what normal people do with that portable but work. let me break the news about common people to you - people still move data on cds.

Re:Speak for yourself

[nwoolls]

I gotta say, from my own laptop usage, my wife's, sister's, mother's, and others, I think you are the one whose needs aren't in line with common people.

What applications are you installing you bought on CD? Games these days are being purchased more and more on Steam, Origin, and the likes. Backing up is done more and more to external drives or offsite hosted services.

Re:Speak for yourself

[amanicdroid]

My external DVD burner works brilliantly for the rare occasions that I need it and shaves unnecessary bulk from my daily carry.

I've spoken for myself per request.

Re:Speak for yourself

[Flytrap]

People have such short memories (or are too young to remember).

When the iMac came out without a floppy disk dive in 1998, exactly the same sentiment was expressed. PC makers gasped, then heckled Apple... But before long they too followed suite and started gradually phasing out floppy disk drives.

Then too, it was the dreaded focus group that dragged out the eventual demise of the floppy - people like you in focus groups saying "... keep the floppy drive, just in case I need to revert to my trusty sneaker-net". Of course we know what every focus group has to say about Adobe Flash... just about the same thing that they have to say about the CD drive now.

Steve Jobs loathed focus groups... that kind of makes sense when you are launching something that consumers do not know they need yet, like a new product. But focus group are useful tools, when used properly. The problem I have found (at least in financial services) is that focus groups are use to make the decision, instead of gauging the acceptability of a decision.

Re:Speak for yourself

[PopeRatzo]

Games these days are being purchased more and more on Steam

That was the case until AT&T started this 150gb data limit and I get throttled and charged extra if I go over.

This week I bought Skyrim on disk. It was the first game I bought that way in a long time. Years.

I wonder how Steam feels about the new data limits being put on by telecoms.

Re:Speak for yourself

[BrokenHalo]

i can't remember the last time I had a HDD fail i didn't get ample warning...

I can, since it happened to me not very long ago. The HDD in my last laptop (the MacBook to which I referred in an earlier post) died without warning just a few weeks ago. It was fine one day, then the next it was rattling and banging away, and refusing to let the machine boot.

Worse, it happened at a time when I had got lazy with my backups, so I lost quite a lot of stuff. A bit embarrassing, really, since I'm big on insisting other people take proper backups, so I've had to eat a generous helping of crow.

Re:I use an optical drive to install the OS

[BagOBones]

I just installed my last os via USB. It was much faster than via optical drive. (speed depends on quality of USB drive)

Four uses remain

[tepples]

Gaming in markets with broadband? Steam. Application installs in markets with broadband? Mac App Store, Ubuntu Software Center (which has paid repos now) or whatever Windows has. Moving data from one PC to another? USB flash drives. On-site backup? External hard drives, especially if your data is over the 4.something GB limit for DVD-R or DVD+R media.

But this still leaves several uses for optical discs: 1. operating system installations, 2. application installations in places that can't get DSL, FTTH, or cable Internet, 3. burning music CDs for people who don't already own and use a suitable PMP, or 4. burning DVDs for the large number of people who own a DVD player that happens not to have a USB input and don't already have a home theater PC. I admit most of these can be done on a USB burner kept at home, and that's what I use with my 10" Dell.

Re:Four uses remain

[PCM2]

4. burning DVDs for the large number of people who own a DVD player that happens not to have a USB input and don't already have a home theater PC.

I love /. sometimes. Careful analysis reveals that an optical drive can be used for burning files from BitTorrent, while missing the glaringly obvious: They put optical drives in laptops so people can play DVDs.

Optical drives should be external

[Anonymous Coward]

Optical drives should be external. They cost $30.

For that price, you could throw one in your laptop bag, and plug it in when you need it.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=420&name=External-CD-DVD-Blu-Ray-Drives

I don't believe in built-in optical drives; I use them rarely. They're useless dead weight. Much prefer that the space they took, be replaced by more battery... which is always useful. Or leave both off and make the laptop lighter and slimmer.

Re:Movies

[voidptr]

Handbrake it to MP4 before I leave. And more likely than not, copy it over to a tablet that's easier to hold and watch in cattle class than breaking out a full blown laptop.

Why would I want to waste battery spinning a DVD around?

External

[tepples]

Anonymous Coward wrote:

How do you get software on a laptop without an optical drive?

By going home, pulling out your external USB burner, plugging it into the side of your laptop, installing the software, and unplugging the burner.

useless for me

[amoeba1911]

Yeah, optical drive is useless for me. I hardly ever use the optical drive on my desktop, let alone on my laptop. Optical drives are useless for professionals who know what they are doing, but for computer novices optical drives are still a necessity. If you ever buy a game or an application it comes on an optical media. You even need to have it in the drive to use the software.

For now, it is cheaper to ship software on optical media instead of some kind of read-only usb drive. There are huge benefits to that though, first of all, a microsd card takes up much less space and weighs a lot less than a dvd. So, maybe one day we will see software that comes on usb drives instead of dvd. That day will mark the death of the optical media, except perhaps for long term archival, stuff i never want to see again but can't get myself to delete i burn on a dvd and throw the dvd into the basement. :)

Hello, 2007.

[Mostly Harmless]

Netbooks and ultraportables don't have optical drives? What's next, cellphones without mechanical number pads? How do people come up with this stuff?

Re:Battery bay more use

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . along with
* an external hard drive
* empower + ac adapter, with anything-to-anything plug adapter
* 5 port netgear switch
* a few cables
* gaffer tape
* leatherman
* cable ties

Hell, with all that stuff, MacGyver could build an atomic powered laser . . .

And after a particularly problematic experience in Gaza, I've added a tiny USB keyboard to the list.

Hmmm . . . I must have missed that episode . . .

Hello, 1999 or 2000 rather

[siddesu]

My first "netbook" without an optical drive was a Sony Vaio Picturebook - like this one: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press_Archive/199809/98-085/index.html. I used it happily on the road until about 2003, when I upgraded to a Victor Interlink - like this one: http://www.kemplar.com/jvc_741.php.

Both still work, and the Victor with Linux still puts most netbooks to shame.

Optical Drives are Mandatory for Most People

[Anonymous Coward]

Uses for Optical Drives:

1. Ripping CDs to Itunes, whatever you use (Rhythmbox, Amarok) to manage your MP3s. A lot of people still buy CDs, or have some to rip.
2. Recording LPs to HD, burning CDs to play in stereos, etc. A lot of folks still have stereos they'd like to use.
3. Watching Netflix / Redbox DVDs, not everyone wants to watch em on a big screen. Or rip the DVD (takes a long time). Sometimes you just want to watch it and be done.
4. Guaranteed boot unlike sometimes iffy USB Flash drives.
5. Archival backup, cheap and easy. Great for weblogs, code base, important docs etc.
6. Commercial software, upgrades, etc. This is particularly true for naive users who tend to delete stuff they should not (like their download, say). Non technical users know to save the install CD/package, they'll often delete the download.
7. Burning Library Audiobooks to CDs, and then ripping them via Itunes, RubyRipper, Soundjuicer whatever. This is good for a number of reasons -- a lot of non-technical folks have CD players they like to use to listen to audio books and don't have or want to use MP3 players, burning the CDs also allows you to rip them to MP3s without time-limits etc. You can do this with both the Overdrive Media downloads, and the regular CD audio books (just copy the CDs).

I love having an optical drive, I consider it mandatory for any serious computer not optimized for light-weight. Netbooks have their place, but for anything serious and regular use I want that optical drive. I use it all the time.

Re:Optical Drives are Mandatory for Most People

[Darinbob]

Agreed. I think it is amazingly arrogant that because some people buy all their stuff online with music stores and DRM that they think they entire world does the same thing. Real people still have CDs we've collected over the years. Retail outlets still sell music on CDs, they still sell software on CDs, and they still sell movies on DVDs. If no one used this stuff then why are they still being sold?

What is the proper pejorative word that's the opposite of Luddite? I'm tired of those gadget freaks who think the world revolves and them and the latest thing they bought.

Re:I use an optical drive for....

[Yaztromo]

1) Reading documentation manuals that come with hardware (like printers) on CD format

Virtually all of which are available online, usually as newer revisions with errata included. Indeed, the CD that ships with the hardware is usually the last place I check for PDF documentation, as there is virtually always more up-to-date documentation online

.

2) Listening to CD's

Are you the one person who doesn't have some sort of portable music player, or who hasn't ripped all their music CDs to a more portable AAC/MP3/FLAC/ALAC format? For playback on a laptop, any time you need to be running off battery playing back a file off your hard drive is going to consume significantly less power than doing the same off spinning physical media.

3) Watching some DVD's

Again, having these files stored on the hard drive is more efficient for a portable device. And there are a number of legal solutions for renting, downloading, and streaming movies available online that doesn't rely on physical media.

4) Occasionally rescue CD's come in handy when a root password is forgotten.

Since the article (and your post) specifically mentions Apple, in their case all modern Apple systems are perfectly capable of booting from USB or Firewire. I do understand that in the PC world booting from removable USB keys can be really hit-or-miss, but in the Apple world this isn't a concern. Booting from USB is faster, and requires less dedicated hardware in your portable system that you wind up having to carry around the other 99.99% of the time when you're not trying to recover from a forgotten root password.

I've already made the decision that I don't need to carry around an optical drive that I use <1% of the time in my next laptop. An external drive or drive sharing across the network to a dedicated system will be more than sufficient in the event I need to move data to or from optical disc.

Yaz

Re:I use an optical drive to install the OS

[Deorus]

Mac OS X Lion now installs from the Internet into completely blank hard disks (yes, even if the recovery partition is wiped or the original disk replaced), if necessary. No installation media required.

Re:Photos

[gnasher719]

If you travel with a high resolution camera you are going to want an optical drive to back up you photos.

A little 500 GB 2.5" USB hard drive is ten times faster, ten times more reliable, and cheaper.

USB optical drive

[cryptoluddite]

Just get a USB optical drive. They use two USB ports to legitimately get enough power, although you can usually just use one plug. They're basically just a laptop optical drive in a box and work just fine for almost everything, even installing an OS from scratch usually works. And you don't need to have it inside the computer for the 99% of the time you don't need it.

Re:My harddisk is smaller than your 200 CDs.

[thegarbz]

I'm sorry but that's just plain wrong. If you're travelling with a high resolution camera the LAST thing you want is to backup to optical drive. You're typical CF card is 16 or 32 GB, many people travel with multiple cards.

So am I going to go home at the end of each day of my holiday and sit down for an hour or two and burn 8 or 16 DVDs? Hell no. Not when I can just plug in my usb HDD to the laptop click copy and then disappear downstairs for a meal instead.

My last holiday generated 400MB of images. My USB harddisk is thinner than 5 DVDs, It's lighter than 15 DVDs, There's no way I'm going to be dragging 100 of the things on my holiday. Not to mention that it is far less likely to cause problems by some customs agent wondering what I'm doing returning from Thailand with what looks like 100 bootlegged movies.

Re:Cap

[__aaqvdr516]

I'm on a 600 MB/day limit on my home ISP. I just recently built a new computer for my wife. The GPU came with a free copy of a game. Based on our normal usage patterns, I'll have it downloaded from Steam sometime in the next six months using the leftover bits at the end of the day.

Central Virginia.

No Substitute for Physical Media

[znerk]

I try not to buy things that don't come on disk. Old habits die hard, but I can't keep myself from thinking about wanting to play some game 10 or 20 years from now, and wishing the company that made it hadn't gone under for whatever reason.

I still play Diablo, Diablo II, StarCraft (and the Broodwars expansion), Quake2, Quake3Arena, and many other "old" games... and I have multiple disks of a couple of them, for retro-gaming LAN parties. I won't buy StarCraft II because I can't be sure it will work next week, next year, or a decade from now - who's to say Blizzard will still be around (and won't have deactivated the activation server)?

Installation from physical media, without a requirement for an internet connection at any step of the process... it makes me happy to know that I can play these 10 and 15 year old games without worrying about whether the companies that produced them will go under.

As another example, how will we (legally) install Windows, when Microsoft shuts down the activation server for the unsupported version?
There's still nothing "wrong" with XP, despite the Vista/Win7/Win8 hype.

I have a huge collection of DVD/VHS movies, despite having digital versions of almost all of them (I'm still in the process of format-shifting them). Physical media says I never have to contact an "activation server" to "acquire and authenticate" media that I already paid for, even if my home file server dies in a fire, flood, or other major disaster (yes, many of my physical copies of my movies are stored offsite).

Another (possibly irrelevant) example: I have iso images of Linux operating systems dating all the way back to 1996, "just in case". I also have images of my Windows install media through the years. Yeah, I collect some weird data. I've just gotten into the habit, over the years, of making backups of everything.

My point is that physical media, unencumbered by DRM, means that the content of that media is accessible in most cases, years or even decades later.

Re:No Substitute for Physical Media

[igb]

My point is that physical media, unencumbered by DRM, means that the content of that media is accessible in most cases, years or even decades later.

I've got some data on a reel-to-reel tape written on a Pr1me, and another from Multics. I've got some data written on QIC-11 on a long-obsolete low-volume Unix box. I've got some punch tape. All of these things might be readable in extreme circumstances (although I think the Multics data would be extremely challenging, what with 9-bit bytes and all) but for practical purposes they're dead.

On the other hand, I've copied my home directory from system to system for the past twenty-five years. I've got files with Unix time stamps in the mid 1980s (including, usefully, a Kermit'd copy of most of the data from the Multics system).

Data you want to keep needs to be on current systems, with current backups. Outside a narrow time window, older media isn't readable without extreme measures