Why You Might Still Want an Optical Drive

An optical disc drive (ODD) is a disk drive that uses a laser light to read data from or write data to an optical disc. These include CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs. It allows you to use CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs to listen to music or watch a movie. Most drives also allow you to write data to a disc, so you can create your own music CDs or create of back-up copy of important data.

The Optical Disc Drive is also known as "optical drive, ODD (abbreviation), CD drive, DVD drive, BD drive, disc drive" and most optical drives can play and/or record onto a large number of different disc formats. And also, the popular optical drive formats include CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL, BD-R, BD-R DL & TL, BD-RE, BD-RE DL &TL, and BDXL.

PC manufacturers have good reasons not to include the drives. Unlike CPUs and SSDs, optical drives can’t shrink much and they add bulk to laptops, and nobody wants a bulky laptop. They shouldn’t disappear entirely. We need ways to access older media. And because they’re read-only, CDs and DVDs just might prove in the long run to be an excellent archival format. But that will only be the case if drives remain available.

An optical drive also needs a loading mechanism. Two general types are in use:

• A tray-loading mechanism, where the disc is placed onto a motorized tray, which moves in and out of the computer case.
• A slot-loading mechanism, where the disc is slid into a slot and motorized rollers are used to move the disc in and out.

An optical drives have some advantages are,

• The cost -per-bit of storage for optical disks is very low, because of their low cost and enormous storage density.
• The use of a single spiral track makes optical disks an ideal storage medium for reading large blocks of sequential data, such as music.
• Optical disk drives do not have any mechanical read/write heads to rub against or crash into the disk surface. This makes optical disks a more reliable storage medium than magnetic tapes or magnetic disks.
• Optical disks have a data storage life in excess of 30 years. This makes them a better storage medium for data archiving as compared to magnetic tapes or magnetic disks.
• Since data once stored on an optical disk becomes permanent, the danger of stored data getting inadvertently erased is not there with optical disks.
• Due to their compact size and light weight, optical disks are easy to handle, store, and port from one place to another.
• Music CDs can be played on a computer having a CD-ROM drive along with a sound board and speakers. This allows computer systems to be also used as music systems, whenever desired.

And also for optical drives, some programs, such as VeraCrypt, still require them for emergency boot tools. You still occasionally get music on CDs—as gifts or when you buy them directly from the artist at a concert. And when you do get an audio CD, the first thing you want to do with it is rip it to MP3s.

But what if you want a small, light laptop and an optical drive? Make the drive detachable and also you can buy an external optical drive for less than $40, and use it only when you’re at home.

Article Tags: Optical Drive, Optical Drives, Optical Disks, Storage Medium