How often do you use your dvd-drive?

I'm thinking in buying a new Sager, but I really want a SSD + HDD combo, possible only in 8170

so I'm wondering, how often do you guys use your dvd-drives ? It's really necessary to have an internal drive or an external drive is good enough ?

I'm not into 17'' laptops, 15'' is enough for me since I want some portability as well...

In 6 months I owned a MSI GT683R I only used the dvd-drice twice
but we never know when we are going to need it...

also sorry for my english, I'm still newb, lol.

 

I only used mine (USB drive) to install/repair Windows.

For software and games, it is more of a hindrance now, IMO. Heck, you don't really even need it for Windows. You can use a bootable USB flash drive instead.

I'd only consider an internal one (at the cost of a SSD + HDD set-up) if I had a ton of older software I needed or if I watched a lot of DVD/Blu-Ray movies with it. Neither is the case, so here I am without one.

 

I personally cannot remember the last time I used optical media. I have all my Windows/Linux installers on flash drives or my PXE server, and all data backup to a home fileserver/NAS. Every machine I own has an SSD + HDD combo and no optical drive. I keep an external Blu-Ray reader for the few times I want to watch movies and that's it. Digital distribution and streaming like Steam and Netflix make optical pretty redundant anymore.

That seems to be a pretty common configuration for a lot of people on the forums because large SSD's are still far too expensive to be worth the slight convenience boost.

 

I don't use a DVD drive.... ever. I just use the bay for a spare HDD.

I try to avoid optical drives as much as possible.

 

2 times for last 3 years:
1) Install Win7;
2) Install DE3:HR to speedup process and not to wait for Steam's dwnld, cuz I went 2 home 4 lunch time and got the game by post, so I was eager to look at the game before going back to office =)

ODD is not needed nowadays, wasting the space for other thing.
Designers should consider to use this spot for better cooling solutions etc.

 

Ever since Steam and BIOS supporting USB boot, I haven't used a DVD often. In fact, I don't opt to use it now.

So, my Clevo has a HDD in its DVD bay.

 

I've used the optical drive on my notebook once, just to reformat it once I got it. You can pretty much bet you'll use a hard drive in there more often. You can get an external USB optical drive for pretty cheap now so consider getting one of those for when you need one.

 

I use it fairly often:

1) Renting DVDs. Blu-ray videos look so nice on my screen.
2) Installing Linux.
3) Fixing Linux when I break it.
4) Moving old CDs to my iTunes library
5) Making (mp3) CDs for my car (easier, to me, than getting a FM radio iPod adapter and fiddling with it, since I live in a large city with a crowded FM spectrum)
6) Experimenting with BackTrack 5

Maybe I'm just old school?

 

I haven't used mine in around 2 years now. All of my CD's I turned into images that are stored on a file server. I just mount whatever I need, hehe.

Also, as previous users mentioned, booting from a USB has effectively removed my need to for an optical drive. Strangely enough though, I still ordered one with my new NP8170. I don't know why, I just felt "incomplete" without it lol.

 

I use mine almost everyday. Mainly for watching movies and playing games. Since I have limited access to internet, I can't download games to store on my HDD, so some games I have needs the CD.

Sounds like you don't use it often, so an external optical drive should fit you perfectly.

 

I used an external USB dvd drive to flash the firmware on my Crucial M4 this morning, and used the same drive to load Windows on the device when I first got it - otherwise I haven't needed it once.

 

Haven't used it once in the last 2 years.

 

I installed StarCraft using the optical drive because I couldn't be bothered to download 5GB in Canada where we have pretty severe caps.

I think the other time I have used it is to get textbooks onto my computer.

 

Doesn't hard drive consume more power and heavier than the optical drive? I think optical drive uses less but maybe the difference is unnoticeable.

 

Personally, I wish they would release a model without a built in optical drive.

I believe that we are beyond needing a optical drive in our systems when we use them so rarely. External ones are great for this purpose, and getting rid of them would allow better builds on the inside because designers don't have to allocate a huge chunk of space to accommodate the drive itself. This would possibly lead to better airflow. But the again, how many average computer users can be trusted to not break their external drives