When I actually thought about it, the only times I've used my superdrive were to install Office, OSX and to burn music CDs for my CD player in my vehicle. I really don't watch DVDs on my laptop, I use my TV. So I doubt I would actually miss it at all, but I don't see it going away soon.
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Would you like Apple to get rid of the CD drive?
- Thread starter wankey
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http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums?a=dl&f=174096756&x_id=mtid38096 thread on this topic at ars
I use my drive at a lot to burn .isos, rip some music, burn DVDs and a bunch of other stuff.
Apple really should offer an option for optical drive, HDD, or SSD.
Apple really should offer an option for optical drive, HDD, or SSD.
Do you mean going away as in "not available at any cost" or simply Apple no longer integrating a optical drive in a portable?
I think some people are misreading the OP. I very seriously doubt he's saying that optical technology won't be available on the Mac but rather saying it's high time we removed it as an "integrated" item and used that space for more features/functionality.
I am perfectly well aware of the limitations of optical media, but i think it has its uses.
First of all it is cheap and easy to store. I use an app called CD-Finder to catalogue all disks i have so i have no problems finding whatever i want. And the stuff i burn on DVD are of the kind that i do not need access to it on a regular basis (like a TV show), but i do want to have it saved in case i need it later on. I do not see any reason to buy a expensive NAS unless i have tons of data i need to access on a daily basis.
I could back up my ~ folder with three bluray disks and place them in a safe-deposit box at a bank, and still use an external HD with TM as a daily backup and thus have a backup in case of a fire or theft. To buy an extra HD as a 2nd backup would cost more and require a larger safe-deposit box.
Optical media is terrible.
a) Low capacity.
b) Cumbersome to rewrite to. Editing a document or file of any kind on, compared to other media.
c) Highly delicate.
People mention backups all the time. However, let's say I have 1 tB of files. At a rate of one DVD every five minutes, I would be sitting here for hours, as I have to reload the drive each time.
With a hard drive, even if it does take hours, I don't have to sit and babysit it.
I look forward to the downfall of optical media, of an era when software comes on USB drives.
a) Low capacity.
b) Cumbersome to rewrite to. Editing a document or file of any kind on, compared to other media.
c) Highly delicate.
People mention backups all the time. However, let's say I have 1 tB of files. At a rate of one DVD every five minutes, I would be sitting here for hours, as I have to reload the drive each time.
With a hard drive, even if it does take hours, I don't have to sit and babysit it.
I look forward to the downfall of optical media, of an era when software comes on USB drives.
I use my SuperDrive daily, but always at my desk. I am all for making the drive external like the Air. I would love to have that extra space filled by a larger battery, imagine a laptop with a 16 hour battery life!
Here in the USA, we've just passed 25% broadband penetration. According to an earlier post, that means that 3/4 of the American population lives in the middle of nowhere. I have the fastest internet connection available in my area, and I get download speeds averaging 400Kbps. I also have a 200MB/day cap on my traffic. Luckily I can go to school to do system updates, but they still take forever since the network is capped at 40Kbps.
Here in the USA, we've just passed 25% broadband penetration. According to an earlier post, that means that 3/4 of the American population lives in the middle of nowhere. I have the fastest internet connection available in my area, and I get download speeds averaging 400Kbps. I also have a 200MB/day cap on my traffic. Luckily I can go to school to do system updates, but they still take forever since the network is capped at 40Kbps.
I just did some quick calcuations....
The area the CDRom disk takes up:
16136 pixels^2 (it's an image, so you can extrapolate its relative size)
And the are the battery takes up
18018 pixels^2
So if we get rid of this thing, we *could* potentially see 10 hour battery lives on Macbooks. TEN HOURS!?! Not only that, you have an entire side for external inputs, 2x USB 3.0, 1x Firewire 400, an Express Card slot WITH a memory read on the other side. Lets add in HDMI for the heck of it as well since there is simply just so much room on each side.
Or maybe not a new battery (5 hours is enough), how about a new cooler? Something that'll make MacBook Pros actually laptops compared to every other laptop out there?
Imagine if you will a laptop at full load at no more than 50-60C or idling at 35-40C? My GPU currently with a *slightly* bigger cooler went from 80-90C full load to 45-50C. That is ridiculously different than what it was before, and the cooler is still incredibly quiet and isn't that much bigger. The size increase from the default cooler vs the Zalman cooler's size change isn't as great, maybe 1.5x larger. If you open your macbook, you'll notice that only a small bit of copper at the very top near the screen, maybe 30cm x 5 cm long piece of copper is doing all the cooling. Now imagine they have a heatsink the size of your DVD ROM. Weight wise it is still very light (if they use aluminum, my alu Xigmatek cooler is ridiculously light compared to the size)
There are simply so many things that can be put into the space of the DVD ROM right now. Off the top of my head, a magnetometer, a GPS, a 3G, essentially a phone. Imagine if you laptop had a wireless card that you stick a SIM card into and it turns into a phone that ALWAYS has internet (albiet slow) when out of wifi.
Now that's a crazy laptop.
The area the CDRom disk takes up:
16136 pixels^2 (it's an image, so you can extrapolate its relative size)
And the are the battery takes up
18018 pixels^2
So if we get rid of this thing, we *could* potentially see 10 hour battery lives on Macbooks. TEN HOURS!?! Not only that, you have an entire side for external inputs, 2x USB 3.0, 1x Firewire 400, an Express Card slot WITH a memory read on the other side. Lets add in HDMI for the heck of it as well since there is simply just so much room on each side.
Or maybe not a new battery (5 hours is enough), how about a new cooler? Something that'll make MacBook Pros actually laptops compared to every other laptop out there?
Imagine if you will a laptop at full load at no more than 50-60C or idling at 35-40C? My GPU currently with a *slightly* bigger cooler went from 80-90C full load to 45-50C. That is ridiculously different than what it was before, and the cooler is still incredibly quiet and isn't that much bigger. The size increase from the default cooler vs the Zalman cooler's size change isn't as great, maybe 1.5x larger. If you open your macbook, you'll notice that only a small bit of copper at the very top near the screen, maybe 30cm x 5 cm long piece of copper is doing all the cooling. Now imagine they have a heatsink the size of your DVD ROM. Weight wise it is still very light (if they use aluminum, my alu Xigmatek cooler is ridiculously light compared to the size)
There are simply so many things that can be put into the space of the DVD ROM right now. Off the top of my head, a magnetometer, a GPS, a 3G, essentially a phone. Imagine if you laptop had a wireless card that you stick a SIM card into and it turns into a phone that ALWAYS has internet (albiet slow) when out of wifi.
Now that's a crazy laptop.
i like to watch movies and back up to static media and to listen to real cds
thank you very much
thank you very much
The current batteries are rated at 7 hours. Also 5 hours is hardly enough. I normally unplug my MBP at 6AM and plug it back in at 10PM. It does get to sleep some of that time, but about 10-12 hours is standard daily use for me. It would be awesome not to have to lug around a power brick every day.
Also, the current generation of computer components are made to withstand more heat. My Early 2008 MBP stays well within manufacturer's acceptable temps even with hours of video rendering or gaming. Yes, it gets warm to the touch, but that's the whole point of having an aluminum enclosure, the entire computer is the heat sink.
You mean the like the formatting used on Mac OS drives versus FAT, FAT32 and NTFS used on Windows drives? ::facepalm::
Each new optical technology that was worth a damn has been backward compatible. A Blu-ray Disc player/drive can also read CDs and DVDs. Speaking of borrowed time, how long has it been since the CD came out? I still see plenty of them in stores. DVD is 10 years old and shows no signs of going anywhere. People just bitch about Blu-ray because they think there's some hipster image of "I download my stuff. Deal with it." I download all of my songs, but I'm not dumb enough to think that hard drives are less prone to fail than optical media.
How heavy are the hard-drives? That's really the only factor that would make it worth it for me. I love everything about my Macbook, but if I could lose 2-3 pounds by not needing a hard-drive, I would accept in a second.
Everything you mention here is not nearly half as useful for me than the optical drive.
Most of the time I use my mbp near a power outlet. I'm satisfied with the number of ports it has and with smc fan control it never goes above 60-70C. And the things in the last paragraph are nice but useless gimmicks in my opinion.
The optical drive however, is used almost daily.
It's been around longer than a lot of the younger Mac users, that's for sure. But it's just depressing that the Audio CD is still the industry standard. Not the disc as such, but the format... 44.1 kHz, 16-bit stereo. Think how amazing music recordings could've sounded if they would've upgraded the industry standard to 96 kHz, 24-bit (or even 32-bit), surround, and released albums on DVD instead of CD. MP3/AAC would've been so thoroughly underwhelming compared to DVD albums that record sales wouldn't have taken as massive a beating from piracy as it has now. Car stereos could've been 5.1 and we'd be wearing surround headphones. Video formats are constantly evolving so why are we stuck with the ludicrously non-optimal 44.1/16 standard developed in the late 70's? I know musicians are a conservative bunch but come on.
I'm on board. I like having one for DVDs but I only use that very rarely. I'd be cool with the remote disc thing on the MBAs, I'd have one but I need a MBP. I do like the permanence of optical data but I think I could get over it.
The industry has tried twice that I know of to replace the CD standard. First was Super Audio CD, and more recently DVD-Audio. Both suffered a lack of advertisement and the propensity to charge two to five times as much as CD prices.
Yup ..industry greed. They thought consumers actually wanted to put 5 speakers in their home to listen to surround sound music. Plus when mp3 took off it was the death knell of any disc that couldn't be ripped.
In a way the unstoppable for of DVD ripping is going to have the same crushing effect on Blu-ray. Consumers want easy access.
Some of you use your optical drive and that's fine but I think were almost to the point of weaning a bunch of people off carrying a drive around with them everywhere they go. We'll all need playback/recording drives for the next decade easy.
No I do not think they will get rid of the external CD drives(I still have a USB floppy drive), but I still don't think they will drop the superdrive out of their laptops anytime within the next few years.
Sure they will. Apple into thin and the Superdrives are slow moving parts that take up valuable space. Apple doesn't even update their DVD applications ..that should give you all a hint that spinning plastic platters are not in Apple's favor.
I'd agree. Getting rid of it provides a lot more options. Heat dissipation being one. Memory stick, wired/wireless DVD drive when you need it...
Hell- the space to have a higher TDP with better cooling, more RAM, hotter CPU, better GPU... I wonder if Apple is tempted to. Like a MacBook Air Pro.
Apple isn't about choice - they know what you need - and so shall it be.
Whereas many high-end Windows laptops offer you the choice to stick in that bay what you will: optical media, extra hard drive, extra battery (see ThinkPad). All those complaining about the disappearing express card slot should be pissing and moaning about the inflexibility to swap out the optical drive as well.
Whereas many high-end Windows laptops offer you the choice to stick in that bay what you will: optical media, extra hard drive, extra battery (see ThinkPad). All those complaining about the disappearing express card slot should be pissing and moaning about the inflexibility to swap out the optical drive as well.