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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

The mid-2012 MacBook Pro was the last with an optical drive, and it is finally considered obsolete by Apple. Apple maintains a vintage and obsolete product list that updates based on how long it has ...

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 and The Repair Association, the Library of ...

Classic disc-based consoles are getting long in the tooth. As their optical drives burn out, they’re rendered unplayable, which is a shame -- these systems were the peak of gaming in the eyes of many.

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 ...

Recently I had a conversation with a coworker who asked me about CD-ROM drives. They purchased a new PC a year or so ago and it does not have an optical drive. This wasn’t a problem until they came ...

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 ...

Optical storage can last a century, give faster access to data, and is backward compatible with earlier optical technology, yet disk drives and tape rule in long-term storage. Optical media is the ...

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 ...

Sony Electronics on Monday said it is shipping blue laser-based optical storage drives and related products to equipment manufacturers and system integrators. The new Professional Disc for Data ...