Optical drives were once so common that virtually every computer came with one, or even two. Now this storage solution is quickly becoming obsolete — it's increasingly rare to find a mainstream ...

Suppliers have ended production on certain optical disc readers due to market pressures, leading to availability concerns in ...

Your old DVD drive can still protect files in a way an SSD doesn't ...

So I just hooked up my optical drive for the first time since moving to Windows 10. It's probably been about 18 months since I last used it, and I purchased it back in 2009. I ripped a new music CD I ...

PS Audio and Naim had to cease production of two Hi-Fi models ...

One of the most interesting parts of the recent Apple Mac Mini and MacBook Air refresh is that Apple is moving away from optical drives. Apple isn't the only company to do so, raising the question "Is ...

I haven't purchased an optical disc drive (ODD) for my PC since...actually, I don't even recall the last time I bought one. It's even been a minute since I owned a PC with a 5.25-inch drive bay to ...

A lot of people these days are streaming movies and watching content online via the internet. Even the process of installing popular apps has changed to involve downloads rather than box-based CDs.

One truism about computer hardware is that, once purchased, it immediately starts falling behind the leading edge of the technology curve. Consider the Dual-2.0GHz Power Mac G5 I purchased in ...

Sometime around 2008 and with the advent of the first MacBook Air, Apple made the declarative statement that the end was in sight for optical drives built into its notebooks. At the time, the lack of ...

The FIC Condor is a great small-formfactor case, no doubt about it. Only problem is that I've killed several optical drives by installing and trying to operate them in the vertical slot that is the ...

These days, optical drive bays in cases have all but gone the way of the dinosaurs. Whenever you do find one, it’s usually in an ultra-budget model—hunting for a more premium case that supports a ...