Thirty years ago, the CD was born. This, of course, was the medium that would usher in the era of optical drives, a technology that dominated personal computing for decades. And though it’s not completely dead, it’s certainly on its way out. In fact, I honestly can’t even remember the last time I used mine. How often do you still use yours?
Image via Flickr/acampos
a year ago i unplugged my optical drive to use the power and sata cables to power a harddrive that had a bunch of King of the hill episodes on it, i only just remembered i hadn't plugged it back in when i read this article
Ha. Yep I'm the same. I replaced the ODD in my laptop with one of those HDD caddy things, moved my old HDD into that and filled the main hole with an SSD. Best tech decision of the year.
It wasn't until I went to watch a BD movie that I realised I sold the drive after I swapped it out.
It sits in the 5.25" bay and does nothing more. Disconnected from power to save on electricity and only gets a spin up if I feel like watching a blu-ray movie on the PC. Rarely!
About once a month when I want a more convenient version of a DVD I just bought.
Or when I find old CDs during cleanup. Got some good memories from those :)
Use the Blu-ray drive in my PC daily. I prefer to buy most of the TV series I watch on Blu-ray. I can afford it, and with the less mainstream titles, if no one bought them, they would simply stop getting made.
Shame that Carnivale was not made in the last few years, DVD and Blu-ray sales really help keep the less popular shows running.
Agreed. Also a shame they didn't get to make the last four seasons like planned.
I use mine quite often. CDs and DVDs are an easy and cheap way of sharing large numbers of photographs of various events, so when my friends and I have been busy with our DSLRs, this is how we share them. My wife wants to play CDs in her car... ergo... burn an audio CD etc...
I've taken mine out, didn't have enough sata ports for my hard drives XD
Never. Optical media requires far too much effort.
I replaced the optical drive in my mid 09 MBP with a 750GB HDD. It was really easy to do (instructions on youtube) and I highly recommend it. I can still use it as an external drive with a SATA ->USB cable but I practically never do.
Once every few months, all the programs I use can all be internet sourced. Drivers for like a printer or other hardware, I just use the website for, even though I may have the CD somewhere... somewhere.
The MB I just upgraded to didn't have any IDE connections and both my DVD drives are IDE, didn't bother me one bit, can't even remember the last time I used them.
Didn't have one for three years, bought one when I started going to local gigs with no iTunes representation
Used four times
Hardly ever... shame I loved my Optical Drive... now it just sits there...
I might if I ever wanted to crack out any of my PC games. Tiberian Sun, or Red Alert 2, or... The Sims? No. Powerslide? Geez, getting hard to remember what I even have.
But I never do that, since that would mean having to close everything else down probably. Although I do have an unplayed copy of Psychonauts sitting there...
Why don't you put them on a USB stick or a virtual DVD drive? ;)
When I'm fudging about with various flavours of Linux, I like to have the CD handy. I know I can load it on to a flash drive, but my housemates tend to permanently borrow those.
Not often, but I like to know it's there. I still buy CD's (yeah, I'm the one), however rarely. When I replace this machine, I'll keep it around for the optical drive, as the next one probably won't have one.
bought an ultrabook, there's your answer
I'd say 6 times a year? Installing live distributions, windows etc
Never. Ripped mine out of my MBP, replaced that slot with the standard disk hard drive, and put a 120gb SSD in its place to run OS and major apps. Its only very rarely that I want to burn a CD for a road trip in the car, but have a new car coming in december so this wont be an issue soon.
Never
Due to circumstances, im unable to watch a movie at cinema for the last couple of months, so i've been renting movies out of redroom dvd
Can't remember the last time I used mine.
I do still use it for ripping movies and for Acronis but that's about it. I'll be putting it into my media centre when it's done.
Haven't used one in a couple of years. Bought an external CD drive when I bough a Mackbook air and it just sits in the cupboard!
At home - Almost never. (About a month ago to burn a copy of Win7 from TechNet for my media PC)
At work - Weekly because software companies seem so adamant to not allow a digital download.
The missus occasionally burns off stuff to give to her mother, but the only time I use it is to install an OS.
Never in 3 years !
Last time i had used it was to install windows. And to go through all data discs i made years ago. Other then that, nope. Thank god for ISO mounters.
even installing windows now I've changed to flash drives and the time difference in immense, down with optical!!