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 ...

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 ...

Generally when a game console with an optical drive stops reading discs the first thing that people do is crank on the ...

If you used or owned a laptop in the 2000s, you'd probably remember that it sported either a DVD or Blu-Ray drive for popping in installation discs, movies, and even the occasional album from your ...

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 ...

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 ...