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Your thoughts on the removal of optical drives.

InuNacho

InuNacho

macrumors 68010
Original poster
Apr 24, 2008
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In that one place
What's everyone's views on computer manufacturers churning more and more computers without optical drives?
Are CD/DVDs on their way out or do they still have plenty of life left in them?
Does the fraction of an inch shaved off because of the lack of a drive make up for it?
Would you ever buy a computer without an optical drive?

Discuss.
 
What are you on about saying a fraction of an inch? If you've ever opened up a 13" MBP you'll see that the optical drive takes up a tons of space in there. If the OD was removed there'd be room for another hard drive plus a bigger battery.

I certainly want the optical drives gone in the 13" MBPs. And I won't be buying another MBP until I can get one with no OD.
 
They have plenty of life because a) ISPs seem hell-bent on pushing data caps and b) general internet speeds aren't up to snuff yet in most of the world and c) blank media are very cheap and it's always a good idea to have a physical backup.

I see your point. Portables can do away with the optical drive or perhaps shrink it. The Cr-48 may be how new laptops roll out and that's ok. I don't see desktops losing the optical drive, though.

I always wanted a Firewire USB-type flash drive so maybe Thunderbolt will give Apple inspiration to release their OS on such devices. I use USB sticks for Linux and it's pretty cool.
 
Until my parents and grandparents buy a tv with a sd card slot that they can play home made videos on; I want an optical bay. Only way to give them videos of their (great) grandchildren to keep and watch. No way are they going to go to a cloud service to do so!
 
I hope they at least give the option in the next revision. I'd much rather have 2 HDD and better battery than an optical drive that I barely use. An external is less than 50 bucks.
With that being said, if there was a 15" MBA, id be all over it.
 
KingYaba said:
They have plenty of life because a) ISPs seem hell-bent on pushing data caps and b) general internet speeds aren't up to snuff yet in most of the world and c) blank media are very cheap and it's always a good idea to have a physical backup.
Click to expand...

I agree with (b) and (c). I back up onto DVDs as they are versatile and cheap. However, I'd be happy with a MBA type situation being normal. I'd only have to plug in a USB DVD drive once a month.

Not sure about point (a). Here, unlimited data is pretty normal and cheap.
 
iStudentUK said:
I don't know about the rest, but the UK bit of that article is very misleading. The only ADSL they quote is BT which has low caps and is very expensive. O2 do unlimited broadband for £17.50/month, TalkTalk do it for £15. I can't think of many people who don't have unlimited data.
Click to expand...

This may be the case in urban areas of the UK, but there are still plenty of areas where there is no LLU coverage, no cable coverage and where standard ADSL is the only option. In these areas ISPs are forced to charge much higher rates and impose heavy data caps.

O2's broadband is £35.00 per month if you do not connect via an LLU telephone exchange and it only includes 20GB of data. All of this while running at "up to" 8Mbit/sec maximum.
 
I'm fine with it. My laptop is an Air and that is by far the computer I speed the most time on. That said, I do have a Mac mini in my dorm room that can read/ burn CDs/DVDs.

I'm not sure I'm ready to give that ability up 100%, but I'm considering a Mac mini server(which I'd then replace with normal OS X, so it just be a Mac mini with two HDDs) But I'm not sure, I still like to rip DVDs now and again.
 
Take them out. A waste of resources and money for most at this point.
 
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As long as they replace it with a hologram or a bong.
 
Save your crap on hard drives, not DVDs. You'll be able to store a lot more and have much more flexible storage. Saving files en masse on DVDs for storage in 2011 is just stupid. A waste of money.
 
I *still* buy CDs, but normally a few at a time, so I'm cool with having an external superdrive. Really not fussed about having an internal superdrive, complete non-issue for me.
 
Being on a Music Technology course and being a part time producer, I use CD's a lot. I'm sure Apple will not remove them on Mac models, just them that are too thin to handle them. If they do, they are alienating a lot of people.
 
I`m not ready to abandon optical drives yet, but I don`t need it built into my laptop either.
I`d be quite happy with an external superdrive and more battery in my MBP.
I`d swap a superdrive for a 12 hour battery in a heartbeat.
 
to me the optical drive is a dead artifact, I have no use for it, through the two years I had my previous MBP i used the optical drive twice, both times for installing blizzard games. this year i got my new 17" and first thing i did was to take the optical drive out and slide a 500GB drive in there, haven't come to regret it once yet.

in all reality dropping the optical drive is not about getting a thinner notebook, but making room for other components, larger battery, larger heatsinks for more powerful cpus/gpus, room for an additional harddrive, additional ram slots, whatever you might want.
 
Let me put this a different way - had the current MBPs lost their ODs I would either be looking at one seriously or would have bought one already.

Now I'm waiting for the next refresh.
 
mulo said:
to me the optical drive is a dead artifact, I have no use for it, through the two years I had my previous MBP i used the optical drive twice, both times for installing blizzard games. this year i got my new 17" and first thing i did was to take the optical drive out and slide a 500GB drive in there, haven't come to regret it once yet.

in all reality dropping the optical drive is not about getting a thinner notebook, but making room for other components, larger battery, larger heatsinks for more powerful cpus/gpus, room for an additional harddrive, additional ram slots, whatever you might want.
Click to expand...

^^^ This.

Optical media is dying a slow death. I rarely use it anymore for anything. I'd be happy sans optical drive in a notebook. More battery is always welcome.
 
I use an OD less and less. The problem is, when you need an optical drive, you need it. There's no getting around using the ODD. And the problem is, you tend to need an ODD at the most random times - at the library, or while you're visiting your grandma. Never when it's convenient, like near your desk where you might have an external ODD.

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If Apple's serious about losing the ODD, what they should do is promote a 15"/17" MacBook Air with an i5 CPU in it, and discrete graphics. Turn the MBA line into a MBP sans ODD.

And make the price point for a 15"/17" MBA + External ODD the same as a 15"/17" MBP.

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Personally, I think Apple should flesh out the MBA line, upgrade the MBP line with Blu-ray, and expand the MacBook line with a 16" model for $1200, and drop the price of the 13" to $900...
 
I actually use mine quite a bit.

Several games I play come on CD/DVD media, which must be in the drive to play the game.

I burn discs to give them away.

I rip movies and music (yes, I still buy CD's from time to time).

I also burn home movies to DVD when I want to take a copy with me or give it to someone.

Several magazines I subscribe to include DVD's with software, photos, etc.

I don't doubt that the drives may disappear altogether, but I don't think we're quite there yet. For the time being, I like having one.
 
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