Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Why the hate for optical drives?
- Thread starter Martyimac
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It takes up space. I'm not buying another computer with ODD, not letting my GF buy another laptop with it either.
I love my drive for the reasons above. As well, for all the people saying you can download programs online, how long does it take you guys to download a game for example that is 10 gib in size?? I'm just wondering because it would take me forever. My internet is not THAT slow i download at around 1-1.5 mbs but that would still take me forever. What kind of speeds are you guys running?
Bloody hell, I'm in the middle of a debate on another forum why an optical drive is still a valuable asset in modern computing. I think people are blinded by their lust when it comes to streamlined computing.
.Max.
macrumors member
Exactly! The people saying screw optical drives are the people saying screw optical drives are the people with 20mb/s+ speeds... I get 200kb/s just because of where I live =O And for me having to download movies.. music and software... even stream youtube is painfuly slow 😀
Sent from my HTC Vision
Wow. Never expected this many responses nor this quickly.
Okay, so I understand the arguments being made and for those folks it makes sense.
I guess where I am currently is this:
1. I still want an ODD
2. The convenience of having it built in matters to me.
If though, Apple does away with them, then I will go with some sort of external drive, hopefully Thunderbolt based. But I would also expect some sort of cost reduction since the drive would be missing.
Thanks to all the input. You haven't convinced me we don't need ODD's but I do see viable options if that ever occurs.
I will say, that since I got into computers, back when the 5.25 floppy was king, that there has always seemed to be a need for some sort of recording medium that was easily transferable between computers/friends. In my time we have gone from 5.25 to 3.5 disks with tape drives for backups, an offshoot with ZIP drives, then to ODD drives and now USB flash drives. I haven't seen anything yet that convinces me that need no longer exists. I know I still want that capability.
Thanks all.
Okay, so I understand the arguments being made and for those folks it makes sense.
I guess where I am currently is this:
1. I still want an ODD
2. The convenience of having it built in matters to me.
If though, Apple does away with them, then I will go with some sort of external drive, hopefully Thunderbolt based. But I would also expect some sort of cost reduction since the drive would be missing.
Thanks to all the input. You haven't convinced me we don't need ODD's but I do see viable options if that ever occurs.
I will say, that since I got into computers, back when the 5.25 floppy was king, that there has always seemed to be a need for some sort of recording medium that was easily transferable between computers/friends. In my time we have gone from 5.25 to 3.5 disks with tape drives for backups, an offshoot with ZIP drives, then to ODD drives and now USB flash drives. I haven't seen anything yet that convinces me that need no longer exists. I know I still want that capability.
Thanks all.
acedickson
macrumors 6502a
You'll definitely be able to stream it through rental or you'll purchase a license that'll tie to you by your google account or apple id. The ways to d/l digital media already stand from iTunes and the like. I'd rather keep it in the cloud unless I'm going to be somewhere there's not an internet connection, which is few and far between now.
My internet connection is 50-60 Mbit/sec both upload and download.
I really envy you Americans that can do without an ODD. I need it for watching DVDs, since online movie rentals (streaming) is virtually non-existent where I live. DVDs are (unfortunately) still the standard for movies in my country.
I watch a lot of indies which are hard to find online, but of course I understand that getting an external superdrive like the ones in MBA is an option..
acedickson
macrumors 6502a
Some of us, like myself, love collecting movies old and new on DVD and building a library. While the idea of digital media other than music is really cool and nifty, I like having it in physical form. I've had my MBP since 2008 and I use the ODD almost every other day when I'm using it. If Apple get rid of it, then I expect the price to go down at least $50. If Apple get rid of it to save weight and space, and opt to put in a second drive, whether it be mechanical or SSD, I will laugh at them. Either of those weigh more than the ODD. I like to think the MBP as a portable Mac Pro, albeit not as powerful. If you're paying that much for a "powerful" laptop, you'd expect them to include an ODD, if not, why not package the laptop with an external ODD? I just can't justify the arguments in this thread, replacing it with anything like a drive or larger battery will make the end-product even heavier. It's just freaking stupid.
cambookpro
macrumors 604
This is the most redundant, stuck-in-the-past list ever.
1. You very well can install Windows without an optical drive. I have a Windows 7 image on an 8GB flash drive($7) that I used to Boot Camp my 11" MBA as well as re-image the computers I manage at a doctor's office when necessary. You just buy a license, and use the USB drive to boot as you would a DVD.
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11: You raised the same point in every single one of these. PC and Mac games are widely digitally distributed, and if not, get a $20 external. Get with the times, there's a million and a half ways to get movies and music on your computer without an optical drive.
7. Recovery boot disks like Knoppix? Let's take up 1/4th of the internal space in a slim laptop just in case we ever need to run a recovery disk. It makes immense amounts of sense to just have an external.
8. Obviously you can't burn a DVD/CD without an optical drive. The point is that the majority of consumers don't use it near enough for it to be taking up a quarter of the space inside a device that could be using that space for vastly more important things.
Cabbit
macrumors 68020
World of Warcraft (about 15GB) is installed on my computer over the net in a hour or two. Virgin media 50 Mb/s (soon 100Mb/s). I would say that is fine and streaming 720p movies does not seem a problem and i suspect streaming a 1080p movie would not pose to much of a problem ether.
20-100Mb/s should be about norm across Scotland i would think except really rural areas that mite still be stuck with 2-15 Mb/s.
To the OP, for the last 6 years i have used my optical drive over 3 macs in that space for the sum total of 2 times. Once i installed The Sims 3 and the second occasion was to watch a DVD movie which informed me that region 3 DVD's(I lived in Thailand for close to two years and brought back my DVD's) would require me to change the region setting from region 2.
vincenz
macrumors 601
I'm sure there are plenty of people who buy music on iTunes and just leave it on their hard drives.
The next generation will probably disagree with you very much.
That's very, very simple. A lot of users just don't use it. I have an external drive anyway after the ODD in my 15" MBP bit the dust last summer. I neither need nor want it; it's just taking up valuable space in my computer. I feel that it would be much better spent housing my HDD so I can put a low-capacity SDD in the HD bay for an optimal speed/storage system. On the rare occasion that I do need to use an ODD...well, just plug it in haha.
Time Machine backup to a NAS/Time Capsule, and copy to a USB hard drive as a 2nd backup measure.
As for CD/DVD functionality, the SuperDrive was rather lousy at writing dual-layer DVDs... an external full-sized (desktop drive in enclosure) DVD-DL is what I use instead and that happens like maybe once/twice a year even?
BUT the advantage of having the space is that two drive setups - SSD + HDD are possible after you dispose of the SuperDrive. 😀
Nein01
macrumors 6502
it takes up way too much space for how often it gets used (by anybody)
literally, it takes up like 30% of the inside. even people who still use their ODD (no matter how frequent) would benefit from just using an external ODD instead, as their laptop could then be designed to include more battery and processing power in addition to more storage capacity.
literally, it takes up like 30% of the inside. even people who still use their ODD (no matter how frequent) would benefit from just using an external ODD instead, as their laptop could then be designed to include more battery and processing power in addition to more storage capacity.
csnplt
macrumors 6502
I haven't used an optical drive more than once or twice in the past 2 years (seriously). I'd much rather have another hard drive (which takes up less space than the optical drive, allowing the battery to be bigger or the computer to be thinner).
I'd much rather just pick up an external optical drive / use another computer if I actually run into the need for one.
I'd much rather just pick up an external optical drive / use another computer if I actually run into the need for one.