one more thing to carry, can't find when needed , broken when needed ... and how much longer will that be around ?Given that USB floppy drives are still available, LONG after becoming obsolete, I expect that USB optical drives will be available for quite some time yet. It’s likely that they’ll stop making DVD drives (much the way we don’t make CD-only data drives any more), so probably they’ll just be $50 blu-ray drives with DVD and CD backward-compatibility.
I prefer the external drives: why schlep an internal drive with me everywhere for the 1 time in two years I might need it? It’s added weight, and would represent the only mechanical component in the machine other than the CPU fan.
During my stint as a computer technician, I learned something about users: they tend to fall into one of two groups, those who are really gentle on their gadgets, and those who are really hard on them. Sounds to me like you fall more into the latter group!
That makes literally no sense. The laser isn’t sitting there turned on all day long: it turns on when closing the drive tray triggers it to check for a disc. And in fact, it’s not one laser: in a DVD drive, there is one IR laser for reading/burning CDs, and a red one for DVDs. (In a blu-ray drive, there’s a third blue laser.) Only one laser is ever on at one time, and it’s off when idle.
As haenk said, a far more likely explanation for drive degradation is dust ingestion, which is not related to whether it’s powered up. An external drive won’t suffer that problem.
when's the last time you actually used an optical disc ? a dvd can hold barely 5Gbyte. a CD 0.6. That tiny micro-sd card can hold 50x more. ( or even much more these days)
when's the last time you actually used an optical disc ? a dvd can hold barely 5Gbyte. a CD 0.6. That tiny micro-sd card can hold 50x more. ( or even much more these days)
A few days ago, I backed up some of my project files on a CD. I burn CDs to play in one of my cars that has a CD player, modern head units look silly in 40+ year old cars. I make boot CDs to install Linux distros and as rescue discs. A huge majority of my hardware and software projects (KiCAD, FPGA, Python, C) can fit on a CD, a single DVD can back up almost all of the critical stuff I care about and I end up with multiple copies archived. The really big stuff like my media collection gets backed up on hard drives but most of that is replaceable. Optical drives will go away eventually but lots of people still use them, even if you don't.
I think the optical drives will disappear soon. (apart from blu-ray players maybe)
The recordable cd / dvd is a medium without use in computers"
- A modern Os installer doesn't even fit on a DVD anymore
- writing is slow, even with fast drives
- easily damaged
- degrades in sunlight (you can't leave it on your desk)
- large
- little storage space for what it is
- risk of making coasters.
There's a lot of material available on optical discs, films and music. Some of it's very cheap second hand. If you have a PC you use for entertainment, a DVD drive is pretty much essential.
when's the last time you actually used an optical disc ? a dvd can hold barely 5Gbyte. a CD 0.6. That tiny micro-sd card can hold 50x more. ( or even much more these days)
That makes literally no sense. The laser isn’t sitting there turned on all day long: it turns on when closing the drive tray triggers it to check for a disc. And in fact, it’s not one laser: in a DVD drive, there is one IR laser for reading/burning CDs, and a red one for DVDs. (In a blu-ray drive, there’s a third blue laser.) Only one laser is ever on at one time, and it’s off when idle.the drive is cranking every boot time remember?
thats the "theory"
Not weird, just different. I have a large collection of CDs played through a CD player - you can still buy them new. I'm not much into new trends in hifi, streaming services and all the rest of it. I suppose I could investigate a proper computer based hifi system and commit all the CDs to disc, but it hardly seems worth the trouble.
I like old films and TV series. I've been given a few boxed sets and picked up another lot through ebay or looking through charity shops (thrift stores), or picked them up at car boot sales. I particularly like black and white films. I haven't had a TV for 25 years. When I see TV at friends' places all I see is irritating rubbish. Apparently that's considered weird.
As for data storage and computer use, I don't use optical media much for that these days, but a few times over the last five years, I've been glad I've had a PC with a DVD drive.
operating life [of the laser], and the number of burned disks, can be considerably extended by only burning at the slowest speed where optical power is lower.
thats the "theory"The math adds up, you can try it yourself.
What isn’t represented is usage-independent aging, and on the contrary, the advantages of running the motors now and then so they don’t seize up.
operating life [of the laser], and the number of burned disks, can be considerably extended by only burning at the slowest speed where optical power is lower.I didn’t know that! Good tip. Thanks.
hmm. i guess i'm weird.
I didn't realize people still even bought media on disks. the little music i buy is from apple. maybe one or two songs a year. i'm not big on music or films. I bought maybe 20 movies on "disc" in my lifetime. now it's on amazon. and even that is like 5 movies a year. If i can't stream it i don't want to watch it. And i'm not subscribing to 25 streaming services. Between netflix , amazon and cbs , that's it. No disney, apple tv or anything else. i hate blu-ray. i've bought at least 4 players, that invariable became unsupported, needed endless updates to play a disc i had just bought. There is nothing more frustrating and mood-killing than coming home, planning a nice movie night and then first need to muck around for 3 hours jumping through hoops to update the player firmware because "it's not compatible with the new disc" you just brought home.
Leaving the drive powered, or for only reading, will have no affect on the laser diode operating life.
What does matter is optical power during writes because the diodes operate at close to their maximum rating. Since the wear is some power function of the power, operating life, and the number of burned disks, can be considerably extended by only burning at the slowest speed where optical power is lower.
The laser diodes do wear, but usually when an optical drive has problems it's because the optics in the pickup get dirty. They are not sealed and contaminates in the air find their way in there. Look at all that dust inside an old desktop computer, some of that same dust gets into the optical drive. I've seen them fouled by cooking oil vapor in the air and coolant vapor in my friends machine shop was a constant hassle with optical drives, you don't see it in the air most of the time but it leaves a sticky film all over everything in the shop eventually.
Looks like HDDs are greener than SSDs:
The Dirty Carbon Secret Behind Solid State Memory Drives (https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/the-dirty-carbon-secret-behind-solid-state-memory-drives)
(not sure how they arrived at that figure)
I still use a blue ray optical drive for safe archival of important docs/data/photos etc , I use those M disks (available up to 28 Gig capacity) which are good for 1000 years
apparently (not sure how they arrived at that figure) but I do know they will certainly outlast standard dvd , hdd or ssd drive archived material.