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Do You Use Your Optical Drive in Your MBP?

  • Yes

    Votes: 136 51.7%
  • No

    Votes: 127 48.3%

  • Total voters
    263
  • Poll closed .
umm yes CD's are very bulky... a box of 50,000 discs (aprox. 500,000 songs) or a 3.5" 2TB drive?

If you can afford to download 500,000 songs at $0.99 a song (approximately $495,000 before taxes), then you can likely afford a storage unit to put your CDs.

I have approximately 350 CDs. They fit in 4 cake-boxes in a closet. They really do not take up that much room.
 
If you can afford to download 500,000 songs at $0.99 a song (approximately $495,000 before taxes), then you can likely afford a storage unit to put your CDs.

I have approximately 350 CDs. They fit in 4 cake-boxes in a closet. They really do not take up that much room.
it has nothing to do with the cost of storage. Your 350 CD's or someones 500,000 CD's still take up CONSIDERABLY more room than a hard drive, hence my argument "CD's are bulky"

Your 4 cake boxes are probably 200-300 times larger than an external hard drive. And if you double your collection, your storage room needs double, mine stay the same until I get to aprox. 1 million songs, then I might need 2 - 3tb drives.
 
Rarely. Any CDs I own were ripped a few years ago and I don't buy music on CDs and haven't in close to 15 years. I don't buy apps either unless I can download them. When I got my first Mac in 2007, I thought it was cool to watch DVDs on it but that didn't last long either since it's been about five years since I've bought a DVD.

I haven't burned a music CD in a few years. iPods took care of that need.
 
it has nothing to do with the cost of storage. Your 350 CD's or someones 500,000 CD's still take up CONSIDERABLY more room than a hard drive, hence my argument "CD's are bulky"

Actually, it has a lot to do with it. You are making a nonsensical argument. The vast majority of people do not have a 500,000 CD collection. Considering you were making distinctions of samples of populations above in regards to the usefulness of the polling data, try not to speak out of both sides of your mouth on this.

Your 4 cake boxes are probably 200-300 times larger than an external hard drive.

100P_CD_Cake_Box%5B2%5D.jpg


No. Not even close.
 
Hmm. I read in the other threads how people argue back and forth in this forum about the need for optical drive. So I thought if everyone took this poll, we'd have the final number tally for forum members. Hence the end of discussion. :p

But what about all those other Macbook Pro users who do not use this site?

How are you going to factor them in to your poll?

Seems to me instead of parking a poll on this site, you should get clipboard and pen and stand outside all Apple vendors and poll the people that buy the machines.

Otherwise this poll is entertainment/joke.


:D
 
We really need to beat this horse every 2 months?? You can do a million polls on here, Apple doesnt check this forum and go oh the majority of the users say they dont use the optical drive and take it out. Get over yourself and learn to search.

There have been about 20 "official polls" of this stupid topic. No one cares.

And I got a good LOL over the 350 cds being 200-300 times bigger than a hardrive...lets see here...

250x9mm=2,250mm or 88.5826772 in

so a cd must be

2250/350 = 6.42857143mm thick or 0.253093363 in

When a cd is a 1/4 thick, you win.
 
Actually, it has a lot to do with it. You are making a nonsensical argument. The vast majority of people do not have a 500,000 CD collection. Considering you were making distinctions of samples of populations above in regards to the usefulness of the polling data, try not to speak out of both sides of your mouth on this.



Image

No. Not even close.
didn't know that's what a cake box is lol.... still considerably larger than a drive, especially if you need 4 or 5 of them. I also never said anything about 500,000 cd's, I said 500,000 songs because thats approx. the number that will fit on a 2tb hdd. Even if one has 50,000 songs, that's a lot more space in CD's than ONE external drive... I don't even understand how you can argue this?

And I got a good LOL over the 350 cds being 200-300 times bigger than a hardrive...lets see here...

250x9mm=2,250mm or 88.5826772 in

so a cd must be

2250/350 = 6.42857143mm thick or 0.253093363 in

When a cd is a 1/4 thick, you win.

How thick is a CD case? :rolleyes:
 
But what about all those other Macbook Pro users who do not use this site?

How are you going to factor them in to your poll?

Seems to me instead of parking a poll on this site, you should get clipboard and pen and stand outside all Apple vendors and poll the people that buy the machines.

Otherwise this poll is entertainment/joke.


:D

We really need to beat this horse every 2 months?? You can do a million polls on here, Apple doesnt check this forum and go oh the majority of the users say they dont use the optical drive and take it out. Get over yourself and learn to search.

I could be a data analyst working for apple :) :apple:
 
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Like I said, didn't know that's what he was keeping them in.

The point still stands, CD's take up more room than an external drive... :rolleyes:

I just measured 10 CD-R's, each one measured .042in or 1.0668 mm.

So .042 x 250 = 10.5in or 266.7mm

266.7mm / 9mm = 29.6333333

So 250 CD's are roughly 30 times thicker than a HDD of the 9mm variety or roughly 22 times thicker than a HDD of the 12.5mm variety.

DVD-R will be the same size so...

I can buy this 100pack for $24.99 at newegg - http://www.google.com/products/cata...t0gGDjvXmDQ&ved=0CHEQ8gIwAw&biw=1680&bih=864#

100x4.7gb = roughly the same as a 500gb HDD, so $25 for 470gb of storage.

Quick search reveals a 500gb HDD for $60 - http://www.google.com/products/cata...0AGczPmLCA&ved=0CKEBEOUNMAE&biw=1680&bih=864# a nice external one ready to go.

and a 3.5 for $40 http://www.google.com/products/cata...0AGegq2NDg&ved=0CKoBEPMCMAI&biw=1680&bih=864# this will need a housing and interface and is quite bulky.

and a 2.5 for about $50 http://www.google.com/products/cata...0QHK8sSBDg&ved=0CPABEPMCMAc&biw=1680&bih=864# which will also need a housing and interface.

So for the price of nearly every one of those HDD, I can have 1tb of dvd storage.
 
I rarely use mine and when I do I'm at home, so I don't really see the point of having it in my computer considering it takes up a lot of space. As for the weird off topic on the size of CDs, seriously, who uses them. Yesterday I was looking for a CD at my parent's house. After about 10 minutes I found both the album I wanted and a best of album which had some of the tracks I wanted. The CDs weren't even in the cases. Screw that, I downloaded the albums off the piratebay, took 5 minutes and I can listen to them whenever I want.

This thread has been beaten to death. Bottom line, there's a market for non-optical drive apple laptop that are much faster/useful than the MBA.
 
I just measured 10 CD-R's, each one measured .042in or 1.0668 mm.

So .042 x 250 = 10.5in or 266.7mm

266.7mm / 9mm = 29.6333333

So 250 CD's are roughly 30 times thicker than a HDD of the 9mm variety or roughly 22 times thicker than a HDD of the 12.5mm variety.

DVD-R will be the same size so...

I can buy this 100pack for $24.99 at newegg - http://www.google.com/products/cata...t0gGDjvXmDQ&ved=0CHEQ8gIwAw&biw=1680&bih=864#

100x4.7gb = roughly the same as a 500gb HDD, so $25 for 470gb of storage.

Quick search reveals a 500gb HDD for $60 - http://www.google.com/products/cata...0AGczPmLCA&ved=0CKEBEOUNMAE&biw=1680&bih=864# a nice external one ready to go.

and a 3.5 for $40 http://www.google.com/products/cata...0AGegq2NDg&ved=0CKoBEPMCMAI&biw=1680&bih=864# this will need a housing and interface and is quite bulky.

and a 2.5 for about $50 http://www.google.com/products/cata...0QHK8sSBDg&ved=0CPABEPMCMAc&biw=1680&bih=864# which will also need a housing and interface.

So for the price of nearly every one of those HDD, I can have 1tb of dvd storage.
cool, thanks for the data. Too bad it has absolutely nothing to do with the original argument. We weren't discussing whether backing up to a CD/DVD or HDD would be cheaper. In fact we weren't even discussing backing up to CD's in the first place. The original argument was about 350 store bought CD's, not even sure why you are mentioning 250 now, and the fact that they are store bought means it isn't taking up .042 inches, store bought cd's in cases are thicker (10mm according to google, which is 9 times the thickness of your measurements.) much closer to my original estimates of being 300 times bigger! :D

Regardless, even if that's what we were discussing, I still don't see any mention of which medium would be the cheapest, the only statement I made was that having one external enclosure takes up a lot less space than a box of CD's. :D;)
 
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cool, thanks for the data. Too bad it has absolutely nothing to do with the original argument. We weren't discussing whether backing up to a CD/DVD or HDD would be cheaper. In fact we weren't even discussing backing up to CD's in the first place. The original argument was about 350 store bought CD's, not even sure why you are mentioning 250 now, and the fact that they are store bought means it isn't taking up .042 inches, store bought cd's in cases are thicker (10mm according to google, which is 9 times the thickness of your measurements.) much closer to my original estimates of being 300 times bigger! :D

Regardless, even if that's what we were discussing, I still don't see any mention of which medium would be the cheapest, the only statement I made was that having one external enclosure takes up a lot less space than a box of CD's. :D;)

Who goes and buys cds in individual cases? The only places I see them sold like that are dollar general and other crap stores, usually bought when you are in a pinch and need a cd now...but if your going to buy cds for use preplanned you will usually buy them by 50 or 100 in which case they are stacked.

And if you read the other 30 polls about this the non optical drive supporters usually push towards it being cheaper when in fact it is not cheaper. You can take music, throw it on a cd and play it on a home theatre system, another computer, car stereo and even cheap cd players. I cant plug a HDD into my home theatre system or my car stereo...and what about NTFS and HFS? What if your friend has Windows and wants to give you something? Then it has to be formatted as Fat and that has a 4gb file limit.
 
Who goes and buys cds in individual cases? The only places I see them sold like that are dollar general and other crap stores, usually bought when you are in a pinch and need a cd now...but if your going to buy cds for use preplanned you will usually buy them by 50 or 100 in which case they are stacked.

And if you read the other 30 polls about this the non optical drive supporters usually push towards it being cheaper when in fact it is not cheaper. You can take music, throw it on a cd and play it on a home theatre system, another computer, car stereo and even cheap cd players. I cant plug a HDD into my home theatre system or my car stereo...and what about NTFS and HFS? What if your friend has Windows and wants to give you something? Then it has to be formatted as Fat and that has a 4gb file limit.
Did you miss where I said the original discussion was about 350 RETAIL MUSIC CD's?

As in, over the last 15 years, someone has gone to best buy, target, walmart, etc. and bought CD's from their favorite artists. That is what I was commenting on saying those 350 CD's would be 300 times the size of a hard drive (when stored in their original cases). Which you then said was not true.. This discussion has nothing to do with buying a spindle of 100 cd-r for burning your music to, it was about store bought cd's which already have the respective artists music on it.... you are arguing something completely different.

Cool, good for the other 30 polls, we weren't discussing which was cheaper, never did I even make such a claim, but thanks! I also never said that anything about sharing the music, playing it on other devices etc. but most people are placing the music on their computer to put it on a portable music player (iPod, zune, iphone, etc.) and there are a plethora of accessories and ways to get the music to your home theater, car stereo, etc.

Why you are trying to argue things I never even brought up is beyond me.. you just want to argue or something? At least discuss points I made rather than trying to say "well in the other thread I read someone thought this..." Great man, go talk to them about it, I made no mention about price or anything like that, simply size, quit trying to bring up other stuff.
 
Its a plastic case? Take it off, it has nothing to do with the cd except the track information which the computer will display when you put it in anyway. Get off your high horse, CD Media is still here because it is cheap and efficient. CD Media will not die until high speed internet is world wide and dont say it is because I have dial up here. But I suppose since you get 20mbps download speeds that we should kill the cd because you have no problem downloading software off the internet, what am I suppose to do? Email them "Im on dialup and since a few people on mr's killed the cd I will need you to mail me a HDD with the software on it." Or go to Walmart and buy software or a game and because I cant buy it on a $.20 CD I have to pay $30 more to get it on a little flash drive?

Satellite internet is not even worth considering, $80 a month for something twice as fast as dialup? Plus they kill the speed at peak hours and you have this nice small cap.

But I can see the comeback now, just like every thread..."Get out of the 50's and get highspeed." I just refuse to purchase highspeed internet :rolleyes:
 
the only statement I made was that having one external enclosure takes up a lot less space than a box of CD's. :D;)

The difference in storage space required is not that dramatic for people with CD collections less than your hypothetical 50,000 (approximately 500,000 songs) units. Again, if someone can spend half-a-million USD on their music library, I think they can swing funding a storage space.

There are two issues; (1) buying through iTunes does not provide the same data, so comparing your backed up hard drive to uncompressed 44.1kHz/16-bit audio on a CD-A is not like-for-like and (2) a hard drive has a single failure point for all of the enclosed data, so as a backup it is not sufficient. Redundancy would be the best practice, which will take up additional space and cost a bit more.

So, while you believe people who are buying music CDs are daft, it makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. Some of those reasons might not fit your situation, but your inability to understand an issue does not condemn it to being irrational behavior. I buy a CD with glorious, uncompressed audio. I encode that CD on your computer using a whatever settings I like. After I encode, I have a physical backup of the glorious, uncompressed audio to just throw in a cakebox. In the unlikely event a disc is damaged, I am out $7 to $12. Unfortunately, but not likely to break the bank. No additional external drive to buy.

So, if you buy full albums and you decide to go with traditional CDs, you end up with an uncompromising backup of your collection for less money in exchange for having to wait for shipping, wait for encoding, and dealing with the additional square-foot of storage required. For me, that does not seem so irrational.
 
Its a plastic case? Take it off, it has nothing to do with the cd except the track information which the computer will display when you put it in anyway. Get off your high horse, CD Media is still here because it is cheap and efficient. CD Media will not die until high speed internet is world wide and dont say it is because I have dial up here. But I suppose since you get 20mbps download speeds that we should kill the cd because you have no problem downloading software off the internet, what am I suppose to do? Email them "Im on dialup and since a few people on mr's killed the cd I will need you to mail me a HDD with the software on it." Or go to Walmart and buy software or a game and because I cant buy it on a $.20 CD I have to pay $30 more to get it on a little flash drive?

Satellite internet is not even worth considering, $80 a month for something twice as fast as dialup? Plus they kill the speed at peak hours and you have this nice small cap.

But I can see the comeback now, just like every thread..."Get out of the 50's and get highspeed." I just refuse to purchase highspeed internet :rolleyes:
Do you not know how to read? Quit assuming things and get off your high horse pal. Where did I claim optical media was dead or would die? I made one statement, a bunch of store bought cd's as backups is going to take up more room than backing them up to ONE hard drive. If you want to argue, argue that point.... jesus christ what is wrong with you?

Where did I say you need to get high speed internet, or that everyone has it??? NOWHERE stop making **** up in your head and posting that that's what i did or will say next, i made one argument and you commented that you LOL'd at the thought of 300 cd's taking up 300 times more space than a hard drive... i just proved to you that 300 cd's does take up that much room if left in their original cases.

Also some people may want to keep the case as a protective measure, for the album art, etc. I'm not saying you can't consolidate and make it a smaller box or whatever, read my ORIGINAL argument, all i said is a box of cd's is larger than an external hard drive, some people holy hell....

:rolleyes:

The difference in storage space required is not that dramatic for people with CD collections less than your hypothetical 50,000 (approximately 500,000 songs) units. Again, if someone can spend half-a-million USD on their music library, I think they can swing funding a storage space.

There are two issues; (1) buying through iTunes does not provide the same data, so comparing your backed up hard drive to uncompressed 44.1kHz/16-bit audio on a CD-A is not like-for-like and (2) a hard drive has a single failure point for all of the enclosed data, so as a backup it is not sufficient. Redundancy would be the best practice, which will take up additional space and cost a bit more.

So, while you believe people who are buying music CDs are daft, it makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. Some of those reasons might not fit your situation, but your inability to understand an issue does not condemn it to being irrational behavior. I buy a CD with glorious, uncompressed audio. I encode that CD on your computer using a whatever settings I like. After I encode, I have a physical backup of the glorious, uncompressed audio to just throw in a cakebox. In the unlikely event a disc is damaged, I am out $7 to $12. Unfortunately, but not likely to break the bank. No additional external drive to buy.

So, if you buy full albums and you decide to go with traditional CDs, you end up with an uncompromising backup of your collection for less money in exchange for having to wait for shipping, wait for encoding, and dealing with the additional square-foot of storage required. For me, that does not seem so irrational.
same argument to you... stop putting words in my mouth, never did i say people who buy cd's are idiots, or that optical media was dead, or that storage was cheaper... why you guys keep saying this i'm not sure? Go read what i posted. I have even said if you want the quality, go with cd's I never said people who buy them are daft, you just assumed that i did for some reason.
 
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tjb1 said:
It doesnt matter what you say, thats what this whole thread is about.

Seems to me this argument is about your inability to read and you assuming that because I said a box of CDs is bugger that optical media is dead.

Maybe you should work on your reading comprehension instead of trying to tell me what my beliefs are.
 
I have always thought this argument was funny. People want a physical backup "just in case"

Fair enough, music quality is a valid reason to want to own the physical cd, but stating it's for backup purposes is what makes me laugh. Nothing wrong with wanting physical media, I just personally have never understood why people say they need a physical backup :D

My argument was that saying you need a CD for physical backup is a stupid argument....

umm yes CD's are very bulky... a box of 50,000 discs (aprox. 500,000 songs) or a 3.5" 2TB drive?

Your 4 cake boxes are probably 200-300 times larger than an external hard drive.

same argument to you... stop putting words in my mouth, never did i say people who buy cd's are idiots, or that optical media was dead, or that storage was cheaper... why you guys keep saying this i'm not sure? Go read what i posted. I have even said if you want the quality, go with cd's I never said people who buy them are daft, you just assumed that i did for some reason.

Which is it again?
 
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