Do you use your optical drive on your notebook?

USB sticks for OS etc. optical drive is just way too big and takes way too much space. Imagine the performance gains we could achieve if we got rid of the optical drive!

 

No such things as performance gains - only larger profit margins!

 

There is clear artifacting in anything streaming or compressed. It's plain as day to me. There are occasions that I'm impressed with the quality, but that's because its a rarity and not common. Do you really think that there would be no loss going from 40-50GB blu-ray to 4-5GB file?

And with many providers putting caps on amount of data allowed, despite pushing speeds faster is also a big constraint. Watch a half dozen movies in a month and half your bandwidth is gone.

I think SD cards are the way to go. USB sticks are still big and cumbersome. SD cards can be lost more easily, but you could fit dozens in a small case the size of a DVD or blu-ray case.

 

Which DVD will last 50 years?
Most DVD-R will last for 10 years. Manufactured DVDs about 15, if stored properly...

 

DVD's have barely even been around for 15 years, let alone been in mainstream use for that long. Provided they're made from stable polymers and are kept reasonably well then there's no reason why they can't last a lifetime. It all comes down to the quality of the disc really.

 

And CD's have been around since 1982 without any signs of wear. Similar technology, just less data density.

 

xkcd: MicroSD

 

Actually there were some CD's from mid to late 80's that were more gold than silver tinted where the formulation of the disc did not hold up and suffered from an "orange peel" like effect of pitting. Sorry I'm not giving a better technical description. I have a few like that that either don't play/rip at all, or play/rip with distortion.

To your poll, I swapped out my optical drive for a 2nd HDD, and use the optical externally via SATA to eSATA cable only for ripping new discs. Not sure if that's a yes or no to your poll

Also, I somewhat agree on the streaming Something like Hulu free, I totally agree with the going back to VHS analogy its what 480 res. I have no idea how people can cut TV service and watch only Hulu, but then again I have no idea how people can listen to iTunes MP3's through a stereo I guess its taste.

I've done a few Amazon and Netflix streams to my 40" 1080 set and I found those to be good I didn't notice any obvious artifacting. But its not like I had the DVD's Blu-rays to A/B compare it. I'm not a big video watcher though, mostly watch older stuff which maybe isn't a good test.

 

Its a bit off-topic...
Sorry to say, but cd and dvd manufacturers say that they can't guarantee that optical discs are readable after more than 10-15 years.
And by the way I have several CD-R from multiple big brands (Philips, Verbatim) from the end of 90s, or early 2000s which are not readable anymore.
Its not a coincidence that companies do not use optical media for long term data storage...its essentially junk. Governments for example transfer the information every 5 to 10 years to new media.

 

Burnable optical discs are completely different from manufactured ones. Manufactured ones (like the music and movie CDs and DVDs you buy at the store) have the pits actually stamped in them and then covered with a plastic protective surface. Burnable discs, well, have the pits burned on a completely different substrate, and are prone to distortion and loss of data easily. That is why they are not used for backups. If they could do some sort of hard stamped optical copies for cheap, I'm sure they would, but it costs big money and takes a little while to make each optical disc stamping die. Two completely different processes, and the manufactured processes clearly more robust.

Burnable media I wouldn't trust any more than transferring data or for a temporary secondary backup. I don't use burnable discs except for making my own music CD's for my car or for giving something to my parents because they don't get the whole ISO mount technology in Windows.

 

I learned the CD-R lesson the hard way, many years ago in the Winamp 2.0 LAME 3.89 days I had a lot of CD's I "backed up" as MP3's on what I thought were good Mitsui discs. Then when some of those original CD"s got scratched I found out the CD-R's became unreadable after 3-5 years. For me DVD's have always had a much higher "coaster" rate of just not burning right off the bat than ever had with CD-R. That's what got me started on the external/network drive train. Personally I have no reason to burn a disc anymore...

 

Rarely, but yes. For me, it's probably one of those things I take for granted. The day it's taken away, is the day I'll need it for something.

 

External optical drives are dirt cheap now given how many notebooks are coming optical drive-less. The Samsung ones used to be over 80 bucks, now they average 40-50.

 

Burnable discs should be used solely as expendable storage, period. Best to keep duplicate backups digitally through other means. Personally I use a local Windows Home Server, an external backup drive, cloud storage, and an external drive at my parents house for the most critical stuff (i.e. photos, personal data, etc)

 

also burned discs, since all of my externals have given me some 15 DVD+/-R, and 4 BluRay 25GB recordables for free, so far


But yeah, I treat them as expendable. BluRay recordables can theoretically last longer, as magnetics do degrade over time, but I still copy around my family photos occasionally to keep them "fresh," just in case.

 

I'm happy to use an external for the few times I've used my optical drive.

 

Yes, I use it about twice a week to burn CDs.

 

Stamping or not, I have several CDs from the 90s that are not readable anymore, due to them being used in cars and portable players.

I rarely see the need for the ODD to be there, I would prefer much more that the new batch of external ODDs to be powered by USB3, since writing a disk uses more power than reading thus needing more power than the USB2 can provide. Thus giving blu ray writers a go.

I usually stream my videos, mainly for the lack of rental DVDs where I live and for the practical side of things, there is only one store in the ''vicinity'', but its not that practical since I need to take the metro for it, and would only do that if I want to watch a movie from the early 1900's or some rarity.

Since for storage its one of the most unreliable things that I ever saw, I dont see the need for the ODD.

Thumbdrives and SD cards are probably going to fill that niche sometime soon

 

I replaced the ODD in my Mac with a 500GB hdd about a year ago. No regrets.

 

Absolutely. Critical to backing up my bluray collection.