Do I Still Need A CD-ROM Drive?

Well I am in the market for a new computer here and I found myself asking a question that I really thought I would never ask. Not that I did not expect the CD-ROM to ever fade out, but it just kind of crept up on me. I am not sure if they are even called CD-ROM drives anymore now that they play DVDs and all of that, but you know what I mean.

I have used a Chromebook for the last couple of years and it did not have one, and I am not sure if it is something that laptops today are coming with. I have not really started looking too much yet, but I am curious if that is a factor or not.

Is this still a factor when it comes to buying a laptop?

 

Most laptops come with a cd/dvd drive, some with a blue ray drive.

There will be times that you may require it, playing music cd's ,or movies, writing your own files,
some manufacturers still supply a cd/dvd for loading their drivers , mainly printer manufacturers.

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With the present trend in digital technology, the CD-ROM drive seems negligible. However, I cannot think of a way to install an operating system without that CD-ROM drive. I still have to check if the USB can be used as booting device which can contain the installer of the OS. But with new computers, I guess the manner of booting is not the same as the old computers that require CD-ROM drives.

 

I don't think you 'need' it in the general sense of the word, but I think it's wise to invest in it as it can save you a lot of trouble when USB is not an option. If you have a desktop, I suggest keeping it/buying one because it's cheap anyhow, only $20 most of the time. However for a laptop it could be negligible to reserve the space for things like a second harddrive which can be more essential.

 

It's advisable to invest in a CD rom or better A DVD rom though a blue ray drive will be a much better investment. Many things still come with DVD or CD. Like I bough a educational book yesterday, it contained a CD to help me in my studies, now if i didn't have any DVD drive then I wouldn't have been able to watch it. Besides if you are not a techie, installing a OS is still best with a DVD.

 

Well, its definitely not a thing for me. But, no harm ever came from having options. I do have an external dvd-writer/reader because I still own a lot of software that I cannot use any other way (or I'm too lazy to do anything about it). The fact is that its still a nice to have, but its not a necessity. So the choice lies with the buyer.

 

My window laptops have the DVD rom but since using the Macbook, I don't have one! At first, I don't like it since I can download the CD that comes with it. Now, I am somewhat used to the fact that I can't play any CD.

I still want to invest in an external DVD for use with my MacBook when I have the money. So, if you can afford it, I think you should go for it.

 

I think you will only need it if you have a lot of old programs that you want to run or watch movies that you have in a DVD format, besides that I don't really see the need for them. A good amount of modern laptops already don't come with a CD-ROM and that is the general tendency.

 

The only use I'd have for a CD/DVD drive at this point is so I could take it out and then put in another hard drive. Far, far more useful for me! I think it's just down to personal preference really. I personally own a USB optical drive so if I ever need to use a CD or a DVD I can plug it into my laptop, but you'd be amazed at how rarely you need to use it, really.

The nice part about buying a laptop without a CD drive is that you'll tend to get a thinner laptop with more space inside, allowing better specs.

Like I said, your best bet is undoubtedly an external drive. It just depends on how heavily you actually use CDs.

 

I've had my laptop for over 4 years now and I've only used the CD drive for once or twice only. So my answer is no, it is not essential to have a CD-ROM drive nowadays. Even for installing Windows you can use your flash drive and make it as a bootable USB. But if your work requires you to use CDs or maybe burn a lot of CDs to submit then you might want to consider it. But laptop mostly comes with a built-in CD/DVD drive so you shouldn't worry much about it.

 

Yes you can buy an adapter that fits into the cd/dvd slot that will allow you to fit a harddrive.

Search ebay for:



HDD Caddy 9.5mm SATA to SATA Hard Drive

 

CD ROM's are now being replaced with Blu-ray discs. These are great for playing 4K videos up to 60fps and are available at higher storage capacities. Although they are expensive they become necessary when playing media on a Blu-ray player. It is not entirely compulsory, but they are what is left for the future of Storage Disks. I do recommend having an extra drive in your Laptop if it is your only PC.

 

It's always good to have an optical drive if you can. If you're going for the hybrid ultrabook type of system, it can be an advantage to still have. For years, I was able to get by before only using external usb dvd writers via usb, but there were situations where I found that life and what I wanted to do would have been a lot easier and worked a lot better with some projects if I had a system which already had an optical drive in it still.

Playing older DVD movies or being able to convert them to a digital format is one still much-needed use for it. Another is to be able to backup data in a pinch 4gb or more at a time without using up space or life of a flash drive if you're trying to give something to a friend or need to make a digital video disc (dvd!) for a wedding or for any other purpose.

I still use CD and DVD burners all the time, and it may strike someone as odd that I would still need to burn CDs when DVDs are bootable and hold so much more, but I still burn CDG discs for karaoke whenever I need to go out or help a friend and the karaoke hosts are still using older systems without a computer that only play CDG discs. Most of those units since 1986 play burned-disc dyes just as well as the steel imprint (standard manufacture versions), but it has to be done in a specific format that normal cd burning software does not perform for people. For years, that corner of the industry led people to think that they had to have special types of hardware to burn those discs, but that was never the case. You only had to have the right software that was able to talk to the hardware and use it in a way that paralleled the same writing method as used for CD+G discs.

Even though iPods and digital mp3 or mp4 players are everywhere now and the casette player to CD work interchangeably with those digital devices to give you a digital to analog conversion of the audio through the casette deck, there are still some models of cars that only have CD players in them. It's moments like those that being able to still burn CDs for audio and music have a purpose even with more common and mainstream users once again.

So whether you are using CDs, DVDs, or Blu-ray optical drives, you'll see that they still have a place for stuff you may want to do with your laptop.

The good news is that you can get literally any kind of laptop - with or without an optical drive - and still do all of this through an external drive. If you only plan to use it sometimes, you can definitely get by just using it externally. If you need to make or view a high quantity of discs or use it for alternative purposes during the next 2 years, then I would opt to get one built-in. Otherwise, it's up to you really.

 

This is also my question. After the lens of my CD ROM drive was damaged and it could not read CD and DVD, about four years ago, I have not replaced my CD ROM. However, sometimes I need to run a CD and in absence of CD ROM drive, I come across problems. Now I feel I need to install a new drive

 

After USB booting has become a common feature, I feel optical drives have become redundant. I can't remember the last time I used a disk to do anything, as I have switched completely to flash storage.

 

I still have some older systems that need to use a CD or DVD drive because the BIOS on them is so old that it won't recognize usb booting correctly.

That, and there are still times even on some slightly newer systems (newer compared to those older ones) where they have to force booting as a usb floppy or usb-cd in a certain way due to their bios because they won't boot in ways that have since become more traditional and universal for current bios usb support to let anything (legacy and UEFI both) to boot at any time. On newer systems, I can see how it would be entirely optional to have a dvd drive for installation or reinstallation. As long as you have at least one working usb port, you'll be ok.

But if your usb ports get damaged and you can't yet replace the board, it's moments such as those that a dvd or cd drive will come in handy still even on the newer models.

I'm currently writing this from a system which does not have a built-in dvd/cd/optical drive at all. It's an Ultrabook, extremely light, no moving parts. So it works well for its missions, and if I do need an optical drive, the bios supports booting from external usb cd drives if necessary as if they were a primary drive (most BIOSes since 2008 will let you do this on every laptop). I still keep a lot of systems here though, so I won't be in any danger or at any risk to use a mix of systems with or without that feature.

If you have only one laptop, I would strongly suggest keeping a dvd drive on it still if you can. It's a good idea to always have a back-up system if you can afford one, and even if your main one isn't a system with an optical drive on it, it's always good to keep one around so that you can recover data, clone a drive, or do anything else you need to from a backup system.

Also to note, some factory-restore backup software doesn't let you make factory recovery media to usb like they should. Many do, but there are still some that assume you have a DVD or CD drive on the system, and only let you backup to those. If you're trying to do that from a system without an optical drive, you'd need to use an external dvd or cd writer to get around that.

You have choices, just always cover your bases.

 

My computer does have an optic drive but I have never really used it. Last year when I bought my laptop there were already very phew that still had one installed. I think with better internet speed and flash drives, optic drives might become something from the past.

 

Honestly, unless you have to burn discs for some reason, these drives are unnecessary. In the past, if you weren't burning, you still needed these drives to install software, but now that the internet is so much faster, you can download virtually anything that you would ever need. The only exception I see to this is if you needed to completely reinstall your operating system or repair a computer that is no longer functional. However, there are external drives you can buy if you purchase a laptop without such a drive and find out you can't live without on later.

 

I've got external usb cd/dvd drive only to burn music to listen in car.

 

Part of what I do for a living is computer and network support. I have absolutely no use for a CD or DVD. I can see needing optical discs for some very old hardware that won't boot from USB or needs drivers to even access a USB stick from the OS, but in that case I'm going to sell them something newer because it will cost them less in the long run. In the case of data recovery it doesn't matter because I just pull the hard-drive and use my adapter to access the files on it from my laptop.