Poll: Do you still have an optical drive?

Deleted member 77746 · 1 Mar 2020 at 21:38

I haven’t used one for 10 years.

HoneyBadger · 1 Mar 2020 at 21:46

I voted yes, but it’s an external USB drive I use occasionally.

Drangueos · 1 Mar 2020 at 23:00

Yes I do, bought a Blu-ray recorder around 5 years ago, never used it, don't even know if it works

BongoHunter · 1 Mar 2020 at 23:14

Have an external DVD drive in my office - only gets used occasionally on a machine I have that refuses to boot from USB sticks, but will boot from USB dvd drive....

Also got an internal bluray drive I use for ripping media and recovering old DVD based backups.

I'm thinking about moving to some kind of bluray based backup solution as well for super important stuff.

Optical media still has a place I think - great for chucking in the post for example if you need to get a lot of data to someone.

Glanza · 2 Mar 2020 at 15:18

Not had one on my own PC for 5+ years, rarely get asked with customer builds these days and with how most cases no longer come with the 5.25" bay external drives are the way most of customers go.

ShiWarrior · 7 Mar 2020 at 16:10

yep, still use it now and again, mainly for reading my Music CDs and then copy to a flash drive to use in the car
and old ,memories and software

new case wont have space for it, so ill be buying an external optical drive

Wrinkly · 8 Mar 2020 at 15:37

I just bought a blue ray drive to replace my DVD writer that died. I wont use it very often, but they are handy to have when required.

AndrewB · 8 Mar 2020 at 18:48

My current PC does have a DVD writer (Optiarc AD-5280s) installed, and I do frequently use it for ripping any music CDs I buy with EAC, then reburning them for the car, along with the occassional backups of photos onto blank DVDs.
I am planning to install another Optiarc DVD writer into my next build, but if I get a Blu-ray it'll be external.

Duke · 9 Mar 2020 at 16:51

something daft already!! said:
My new case doesn't even have the slots for them.

H3x · 9 Mar 2020 at 17:24

None of the PC's we have have drive bays for them but I do have a cheap portable one just in case the need ever arises

Marsman · 11 Mar 2020 at 11:26

Last one I had went faulty a few years ago. Didn't bother to replace it as it was only rarely used. The last case I choose has no space for one, so I thought I'd just get an external one. Still haven't done that yet.

stev377 · 11 Mar 2020 at 14:28

My new case doesn't even have the drive bays

TNA · 12 Mar 2020 at 05:40

Vince said:
Not had one for probably 10 years or more

Sounds about right for me too. Had my current case for around 7 years and I never installed one in it. Don’t think I had one in my previous one either. Used to have two before though.

I have an external one that hardly ever gets used.

Haze · 12 Mar 2020 at 05:45

Yes, but used it about 5 times in 5 years

Quartz · 12 Mar 2020 at 08:24

something daft already!! said:
Anyone still rocking DVD drive etc?

Yes. I have an external one.

Snapshot · 12 Mar 2020 at 09:29

I do some photography for the local museum and the easiest way to transfer the processed shots back to the curator I work with is on CD. The IT kit they have belongs in a museum so there are plenty of drives there to read the CDs.
I also rip audio CDs.

rhysduck · 12 Mar 2020 at 10:04

Yes - only external though.

dannywaugh1 · 1 Mar 2023 at 14:22

Planning a new build to have a internal bluray drive for making backups etc

ShiWarrior · 1 Mar 2023 at 14:24

internal ?
why not external ?

darael · 1 Mar 2023 at 14:52

I have still have two optical drives.

Separate blu-ray and DVD drives as the blu-ray is annoyingly slower when ripping DVDs, otherwise it'd be the one drive to do both jobs. I just rip some of my own bought media to hard drive, perfect for backing up to another drive which is only powered up when ripping or transferring rips to be encoded.