Poll: Could you live without an optical drive?

[Yebubbleman]

You're saying that USB is a good substitute for Firewire 800 when connecting to external storage? I wasn't even talking about target disk mode or firewire videocams. I was just talking about the inadequacy of USB.

IMHO, the biggest deficiency of the current MBAs is that they have very limited storage capacity and no Firewire port for reasonable external storage access.

I'm saying that USB is a substitute that most consumers are okay with. Frankly, I wouldn't have a Mac without a FireWire port, but that's just me. I ask many of the users I support if they'd miss the FireWire port and their response every time is "what's that?". Their loss, I say.

 

[ElCidRo]

Frankly I would have been ok without an optical drive on my laptop since 3 years ago...
I think I used it twice in 3 years :|

 

[rtrt]

i do use an optical with my mb - but i use an external for the higher speed.

at some point in the next 6 months i'll rip out the optical and instal a 2nd drive.

if Apple remove the optical and expand the battery so i cant add a 2nd drive - i'd see that as a backward step.

 

[Karpfish]

The optical drive on my machine is bent to the point that I can put a disk in it, but it won't come out. This has happened on my last 3 apple machines. I just ordered a data doubler and 120GB SSD from OWC. Can't wait to install that in addition to the 8GB RAM I ordered. That should make my machine pretty damn quick and more useful to me considering the optical drive is not even an option at this point.

 

[ZenErik]

The optical drive on my machine is bent to the point that I can put a disk in it, but it won't come out. This has happened on my last 3 apple machines. I just ordered a data doubler and 120GB SSD from OWC. Can't wait to install that in addition to the 8GB RAM I ordered. That should make my machine pretty damn quick and more useful to me considering the optical drive is not even an option at this point.

That looks incredibly useful. Anyone have any idea how much it'll throw off the weight balance of the machine?

Also, how much will using 2 storage drives affect battery life?

 

[Yebubbleman]

The optical drive on my machine is bent to the point that I can put a disk in it, but it won't come out. This has happened on my last 3 apple machines. I just ordered a data doubler and 120GB SSD from OWC. Can't wait to install that in addition to the 8GB RAM I ordered. That should make my machine pretty damn quick and more useful to me considering the optical drive is not even an option at this point.

The only valid complaint I've seen for the slot-load optical drive is that it is flimsy and proned to failure. I've owned four Macs that have it since I've been a Mac owner, and three of them have had to have it replaced. Clearly, this is another example of Apple choosing form over function. So, to those of you who wish to see your optical drive replaced with an SSD, a second hard drive, a quad-core CPU, or any of that, again, you're delusional if you think Apple will, in (potentially) nixing said optical drive, choose function over form. More battery life? Maybe, but do we need more than a normal working day? Not really.