how much do you use your rom drive??

AthlonXP

AthlonXP

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Oct 14, 2001
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I am considering taking mine out to put in a Lian-Li 343B 120mm fan adapter into my machine. I will put my drive into an external enclosure for the meantime. Anything wrong with that??
 
At work I have about 1/2 of the machines without dvd drives since I never use them. All of our windows software is on isos that I can access via a network share (academic volume licencing) and Virtual CloneDrive.
 
I use mine to install Windows 7 (although it could be done just as easily with a flash drive), and on my P67 board I use it to install the network drivers from the CD because Windows 7 doesn't install them automatically. That's it. And all of it could be avoided, or done once with the case open and a DVD drive hooked up, and then removed. My current rig has one, but the next time I build it, I will remove it to save space. My HTPC, however, will probably be upgraded from a DVD-RW to a Bluray once the Bluray burners drop below $50 (hopefully within a year or so).
 
Pretty much never.. I bought 2 external DVD-RW drives just in case, but still rarely use them. Once a month maybe? I have an Antec 900 with 3 120mm fans filling the front now.
 
Rossi~ said:
Pretty much never.. I bought 2 external DVD-RW drives just in case, but still rarely use them. Once a month maybe? I have an Antec 900 with 3 120mm fans filling the front now.
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I am pretty much moving to that as well now.
 
Old(ish) picture of what i have

4.jpg


I've actually got rid of one of the external drives and have my e-sata external 2Tb backup drive on it. Optical is dying, long live downloadable media.
 
I have a probably 6 year old IDE DVD burner still installed, mainly still there because my case is enormous, it doesn't use a SATA port and I'd have to find something to fill the hole with. Might get used a couple times a year to pull some old media off DVD-R or burn an OS image.

Next build won't have IDE, and I think that'll be the end of the optical drive in my main rig. HTPC has a BluRay reader DVD burner in it, I suppose I could use that in a pinch.
 
I use it to burn CD's for my car but that will probably be obsolete for my next car which can probably read digital media. I also use it to reinstall windows from time to time, its easy and doesn't require the effort of researching or remembering how to install from a flash drive.
 
I still burn all kinds of things. And about half of my games are cd /dvd
 
sirholio said:
I still burn all kinds of things. And about half of my games are cd /dvd
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I burn occasionally but if I buy a movie it gets ripped and put on the server so the movie goes into the archives. I still use mine quite a bit.
 
drescherjm said:
At work I have about 1/2 of the machines without dvd drives since I never use them. All of our windows software is on isos that I can access via a network share (academic volume licencing) and Virtual CloneDrive.
Click to expand...

PXE server FTW!!

same here,D drives in them, mine and one in a conference room, 0 need for them these days in most work situations.
 
I have OD's in my laptops for now, but rather soon I plan to ditch the one in my main lappy for a second HDD bay for expanded storage. I hardly ever use op media anymore, except in the case of one or two games I sometimes indulge in (FEAR and BF2142). Anymore it's easy enough for me to use USB drives to do OS swaps using UNetBootin (sic) and XBoot.
 
I have a lot of external Optical drives. I don't even use on in my laptop. I have since converted that to a 2nd HDD. When I need it, I just plug it in.
 
almost never.

If not for the convenience factor of having one when I need it to rip blurays and stuff, I'd probably get rid of it alltogether
 
I use mine daily. I like my USB 2 external it seems just as fast as my internals so if you want to do what you said it should work fine.
 
Burn audio CDs and ISO discs all the time.
Can't escape... the optical media...
 
I have 8 computers, only 1 ever uses the optical drive. That is the one that is the HTPC and it is used for BR and DVDs rented from redbox. Many of them did get their original windows 7 / vista instal from the optical drive and it was never used again. Windows 8 is on a flash drive.

I have made it a new goal of mine to get better at using flash drives to install operating systems once I do that I will have no use for the drives in all but the HTPC and will probably remove and sell most of them.
 
i got alot of backups DVD;s and some BR disks so it is useful, and in costa rica alot of people still use cd's even!
 
Rarely use mine, not even once a month, so I took it out of my laptop and replaced it with a HDD caddy. Now I can save up for that 500GB SSD for the main bay and still have bulk storage. I have my ODD in a external case collecting dust.
 
I use it to rip any physical BD I get, and once in a great while if I need to burn an ISO for a REALLY old machine that can't boot from a thumbdrive.
 
I use mine to rip CDs and DVDs. Every once in a while I burn a CD for either my car stereo or for a friend. I have no optical drive in my laptop, my file server or all but one of my desktop PCs. I have three or four old DVD drives in my parts closet and doubt that I'll ever use them again.
 
I use the BD-Rom drive in my laptop every single day I bring it to work on night shift..

On my desktop my drives get used for converting my large DVD collection into mp4s
 
I use it all the time to rip music (still buy albums from my favorite artists) and movies (Redbox rentals for watching later, I don't really archive them)... Took out the second one I had about a year ago since it'd been a while since I used it to install/run games (only reason I had 2).

I don't understand why cases are still designed with so many external bays, for the most part. Even the ones that have few 5.25" bays just replace all the gained space with 3.5"bays as if the majority of enthusiasts were running a server off their desktop cases.

I wanna see more compact/efficient case designs with maybe a single 5.25" bay moved up and over the entire case (over the RAM area), add some sleds for two to four 3.5"/2.5" drives along the floor of the case (maybe two 3.5" there and two 2.5" behind the mobo), and shrink the entire thing substantially without really sacrificing GPU/CPU HSF room. Why is no one building something like this?
 
Impulse said:
I don't understand why cases are still designed with so many external bays, for the most part. Even the ones that have few 5.25" bays just replace all the gained space with 3.5"bays as if the majority of enthusiasts were running a server off their desktop cases.
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Most people have no need for a server and many can eliminate the need by putting four, five, six or more large storage drives in a desktop. System designs today are silent and energy efficient enough that these systems can be run 24x7 and act as file servers on a network.

I wanna see more compact/efficient case designs with maybe a single 5.25" bay moved up and over the entire case (over the RAM area), add some sleds for two to four 3.5"/2.5" drives along the floor of the case (maybe two 3.5" there and two 2.5" behind the mobo), and shrink the entire thing substantially without really sacrificing GPU/CPU HSF room. Why is no one building something like this?
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Lian Li and Silverstone have a number of innovative small case designs, but they don't all sacrifice internal drive space purely for the sake of compactness.

Unless you're looking for portability or the ability to place the system on a desk, there's not a lot to be gained by shrinking a tower case that will sit on a floor beside a desk to its absolute minimum. With my current mATX case, I have it sitting on a pedestal, which gives me easier access to the DVD-RW drive and USB ports. The overall footprint and height are comparable to a large ATX tower. I've really gained nothing by using mATX.
 
I still use mine to burn music since my truck radio is OEM and doesn't have a Aux input :(
 
almost never, took mine out some time ago and switched to external usb DVD-RW just in case i need one. Its collecting dust somewhere, havent seen it in a while :rolleyes:
 
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