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 ...

Optical drives are still practical for many users, whether to play old CDs and DVDs, install software, or create ...

The cheapest upgrade to my media library wasn't a hard drive ...

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 ...

Can optical drives get new life? That’s the idea behind Hitachi-LG Data Storage’s concept of hybrid optical drives. First shown at Computex last June, Hitachi-LG Data Storage was showing its hybrid ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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.

Xbox now promises to let you keep your physical games going forever, even if next-gen consoles don’t contain an optical drive ...

Use left and right arrow keys to seek audio. Consumers now have the right to repair and replace optical drives from any video games console that utilizes such drives. Thanks to proponents like iFixit ...

The librarian of Congress has provided a new exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that will let people repair optical drives on video game consoles. The ...