• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

My thoughts on PC cases manufactured without optical drive bays

C

computerdude92

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2014
Messages
1,059
Location
Alaska
I can't believe people actually buy new PC cases that lack slots for DVD/Bluray drives. I hear a number of non-techie people complaining that they still want their new laptops to have one built in. They want to watch their movies.

Did PC manufacturers try to trick people into thinking they don't need an optical drive so they won't end up ripping discs and infringe on copyright, or do most people actually don't feel the need for them anymore?

Or maybe they just no longer want the clutter of owning so many discs that take up so much space...

I am aware that a great number of gamers use platforms like Steam and they digitally download their games, but not everybody wants to rely on the Internet to play their games. It really pays to have a hard copy on a disc.

I can't imagine ever having a main PC without an optical drive. There's so many uses; even M-DISC archival use.

What are your thoughts on the topic?
 
A lot of the mini-towers I have looked at recently had 5.25" drive bays but the fascia did not include openings so optical drives can't be installed. I don't understand it. Why waste all that space if nothing can be put there?

Sales of optical drives have been decreasing and the movies on disc are in fast decline so I am not surprised the optical drive isn't offered by default but I would have expected the slow demise like the floppy drive had where there was a bay and port available should anyone feel the desire to buy one.

It was a bit amusing that the only USB DVD drives available in one store were specifically designed for the phone (USB OTG) market. Everything was sacrificed for light weight and low power consumption. It was also set to work with discs from Australia making it a bit annoying here.
 
There are some old case designs that have bays for drives but the front have been updated so there are no cutouts for them. I see the change because its cheaper to make and because the airflow is better. With the switch to downloads for content instead of media people are using optical drives less, plus installing from a USB 3.x stick is much faster than using optical drives.

You could just connect a USB drive to play DVDs or just use an XBOX for that.
 
I have a laptop without a drive. I really haven't missed it. I did buy some magazine PDFs on CD and had to use an old PC to load. I do have a standalone Blue-Ray player connected to a TV but I can't remember when I last used that either...
 
Chuck(G) said:
Well, there are certainly USB DVD/CDROM drives...
Click to expand...
For your own good I want to warn you and everyone else:

I used to use USB external optical drives, but I find they have a risk of electrical over-current issues.

That to me is a safety issue for my PC it's plugged into.

I had one or two USB optical drives in the past that went bad and Windows gave an error message about over-current.

I have stuck to using only internal IDE/SATA optical drives in all my systems just to play it safe.
 
You can always us a powered USB hub with external devices. However, there really is a very low risk of going over current on any port that is USB3 or newer, due to the increased ceiling for power delivery.

- Alex
 
computerdude92 said:
Did PC manufacturers try to trick people into thinking they don't need an optical drive so they won't end up ripping discs and infringe on copyright, or do most people actually don't feel the need for them anymore?
Click to expand...
My personal observation is that it went from being obvious that a laptop should have an optical drive to obvious that it shouldn't within a few years after the release of the MacBook Air. Apple sets the industry standard including no ethernet, no headphone jack, to the most trivial things like rounded corners so it's just par for the course. Give them credit in a business sense though for so effectively moving things from megahertz to thinness in terms of what counts.

I've seen others say that once it became uncool to have an optical drive, desktop cases started getting mocked by reviewers/influencers for having drive bays, so that's why they all disappeared at once a few years back.

Someone pointed out to me that InWin still lists cases with bays on their website (https://www.in-win.com/en/computer-chassis/list/30/USA) but I don't know how well that translates to actual inventory.

I also avoid USB. It's been flaky for me for its entire existence! USB floppy drives only work reliably for me with the most perfect, defect-free media. I had to go to USB-C ethernet adapter for ethernetless work laptop and it myteriously disconnects for a few seconds a few times a week.
 
USB is here to stay, with all of its warts. I don't see any end of the fragile connectors and flaky software--iit allows one to do things on the cheap. Some of the specs for more complicated devices will leave you with a bad headache.

That being said, I keep a USB DVD drive around for those cases where I've been too lazy to install a proper DVD drive.
 
I think that the decline of optical disc drives in computers is a big mistake. The switch away from physical products to internet/streaming/digital download based services comes with trade-offs that aren't good in the long run and have already exhibited the drawbacks: cloud-based privacy problems, loss of digital "properties" to changing policies or closing businesses, and data integrity tampering. You can't lose your data or find out it's been censored, deleted, changed when it's been stored on a read-only medium. You can't have your private data exposed to the world when it's only available on a DVD-ROM you have sitting in a drawer. (At least until you load it into that network-connected computer.)

The decline in optical discs is another example of what I feel is the effects of having "multiple means to achieving the same goal" verses "people just wanting to get the job done" and not having to think about it. When there is only one way to do something, everyone has to do it that way. Nobody thinks about it.

Once more ways arise, most people go with the way that becomes the most recommended/popular. That method is perceived as progress, convenient, efficient, economical, etc. regardless of the truth when applied to a particular circumstance. The trade-offs are not really weighed and considered until afterwards when some people suddenly realize that they've lost capability.

We're seeing this happen now with land lines, fax machines, fluorescent lighting, and optical discs. We are seeing it even with desktop computers declining in favor of smart phones. But this has already happened with typewriters, photographic film, tapes, and vinyl records. Those people that are "really into" the field, are the ones who feel the impact, that loss of capability, sooner. But they aren't the average users who just want to get the job done "good enough" for their simple needs.

An industry survives on what the average people feel is the one way to do things because they're the largest paying segment of the market. Once a trend develops away from the old technique, the industry shrinks the other options until they are almost or totally gone. Then, once enough people realize what they've lost in the trade-off, the industry has to find out how big demand is for the old way and expand to meet that new level of demand. (Think of how many different kinds of computers existed before the IBM PC, and look at how we are seeing different kinds of computers rise again. The same thing with Unix & CP/M era to DOS/Windows to now.)
 
It has been observed many times that "the Internet will change everything". And so it has. Why use a DVD or CD when you can just as easily stream from the 'net? What's even better, the publishers have ultimate control of the medium and can withdraw or "lose" it at their convenience. We're writing our history in sand...
 
Chuck(G) said:
Well, there are certainly USB DVD/CDROM drives...
Click to expand...
Yes, but there are USB 3.5 floppies and also USB CD-ROMs for those few occasions that I would need them.
Question: Why would you need either on today's modern systems?
 
acgs said:
Once more ways arise, most people go with the way that becomes the most recommended/popular. That method is perceived as progress, convenient, efficient, economical, etc. regardless of the truth when applied to a particular circumstance. The trade-offs are not really weighed and considered until afterwards when some people suddenly realize that they've lost capability.

We're seeing this happen now with land lines, fax machines, fluorescent lighting, and optical discs. We are seeing it even with desktop computers declining in favor of smart phones. But this has already happened with typewriters, photographic film, tapes, and vinyl records. Those people that are "really into" the field, are the ones who feel the impact, that loss of capability, sooner. But they aren't the average users who just want to get the job done "good enough" for their simple needs.
Click to expand...
It's always entertaining to me that the two major exceptions to this are metric (in the US) and IPv6.
 
Anyone with pets or small children would prefer having internal drives instead of USB drives to avoid all the accidents otherwise common.

Anyone who already owns optical media would be a good candidate for an extra optical drive. If the new computer can stream a video, it can play a DVD. Alas, the self-destructive nature of the Blu-ray committees have done a lot to make Blu-ray useless with the computer.

I do find it a bit amusing that while computers are losing optical drives and even DVD playback software is dropped from OSes, tablets combined with DVD players and special DVD drives for phones were introduced.
 
DVD players for kids is not surprising. When VHS was dead the last units made were small TVs with built in VHS players for kids.

Streaming has pretty much killed optical media production with only the major titles getting releases. Just like when we switched from VHS to DVD and DVD to BR anything not economically worth it never made the jump and the same will happen with streaming. So you either have to save the old media and players or go without.

While I don't see the need to have optical in a brand new build (since I have legacy systems anyway) I do see a problem with collectors who tend to use newer case for older system builds that need optical drives.
 
ajacocks said:
You can always us a powered USB hub with external devices. However, there really is a very low risk of going over current on any port that is USB3 or newer, due to the increased ceiling for power delivery.

- Alex
Click to expand...
That feels a lot like: "it keeps blowing the fuse, So i'll put a bigger one in"
 
krebizfan said:
Anyone with pets or small children would prefer having internal drives instead of USB drives to avoid all the accidents otherwise common.

Anyone who already owns optical media would be a good candidate for an extra optical drive. If the new computer can stream a video, it can play a DVD. Alas, the self-destructive nature of the Blu-ray committees have done a lot to make Blu-ray useless with the computer.

I do find it a bit amusing that while computers are losing optical drives and even DVD playback software is dropped from OSes, tablets combined with DVD players and special DVD drives for phones were introduced.
Click to expand...
As a note my Lian case has room for 12 internal drives. Also, it's like what do you prefer, standard shift or automatic. As long as they make a peripheral, and there's money to be made, you can bet they'll have a case for it.
 
Last edited:
Chuck(G) said:
We're writing our history in sand...
Click to expand...

So that's why the iPad and the Etch A Sketch look so similar! ;)

Makefile said:
It's always entertaining to me that the two major exceptions to this are metric (in the US) and IPv6.
Click to expand...

I would say that both are covered by people going with what is the recommended option. In the US, there has been a lot of people recommending the English system (especially the government) making it the choice. The fact that most of the rest of the world chooses the "more popular" metric system shows that it was the recommended choice outside the US. (It is entertaining to me too, BTW.)

krebizfan said:
Anyone with pets or small children would prefer having internal drives instead of USB drives to avoid all the accidents otherwise common.
[...]
Anyone who already owns optical media would be a good candidate for an extra optical drive.
Click to expand...

Exactly!

I do find it a bit amusing that while computers are losing optical drives and even DVD playback software is dropped from OSes, tablets combined with DVD players and special DVD drives for phones were introduced.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that really shows how much optical discs are going the way of the Dodo.
 
Agent Orange said:
As a note my Lian case has room for 12 internal drives. Also, it's like what do you prefer, standard shift or automatic. As long as they make a peripheral, and there's money to be made, you can bet they'll have a case for it.
Click to expand...
What do you use the case for? A seat?

In regards to usb optical drives I haven't had any issues what so very and the read/write media is readily avaible at any computer store I go to.

I'd imagine the issue varies from country to country..

Just the circle of life External optical drives have been around since the scsi dayz way back when....

Vinyl records died but now they are back.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top