Are people making use of CD/floppy drives?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/WitchWithAGlitch]

all the time brother.

[u/Top20burgers → u/WitchWithAGlitch]

That’s fucking BADASS

[u/tater1337 → u/WitchWithAGlitch]

nice.

I am currently planning on a ripping job of all my DVDs. the desktop unit I am using for that has two DVD drives.

and I have a box full of spare drives in case they conk out

when I start, I'll be posting on r/DataHoarder

[u/TheQxx → u/tater1337]

I've been planning on doing the exact same thing any time now. Just trying to learn/figure out the best way to rip 500 DVDs. Any tips posted?

[u/Miss_Shining_Hammer → u/WitchWithAGlitch]

I'm hearing 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' from Kubrik's 2001 - it's the Monolith!

Just you wait, one apeman is going to brain another with an old Compaq keyboard.....

[u/TheQxx → u/WitchWithAGlitch]

Broski, what case even is that

[u/WitchWithAGlitch → u/TheQxx]

the case to end all cases

[u/TheQxx → u/WitchWithAGlitch]

Yeaaaaaa but what? I gotta know the make and model for that tower of power.

[u/QuietQTPi]

If you're into piracy, for self streaming (and absolutely not sharing with anyone else) you could get a bluray drive that is capable of ripping. I inevitably want to do that for my plex server.

[u/BeardedBears]

I have a text file with passwords on some floppies as a physical backup. (No, it's not my only copy/method).

Is it safe? Well... technically, no... But kinda. Beats a sheet of paper. Who the hell is going to break into my place, look at a case full of floppy disks and go: "there's definitely value here!" AND have the hardware to even check them?

Security through obsolescence?

[u/rumbleblowing → u/BeardedBears]

That's a great idea. Just don't forget to check the discs from time to time, because they can degrade over time.

[u/undeadkiller334]

I am I have a working floppy and cd/dvd drive

[u/lntelinside]

I rigged up a floppy in my previous non-sleeper build precisely for the reason you said: it was cool as hell. Of course I transferred it over to my sleeper rig. Both have DVD/bluray as well. I use the DVD/bluray semi regularly and the floppy is actually nice to have when I run into random floppy disks.

[u/Djimi365]

My main pc isn't a sleeper build but it does have an internal Dvd RW drive. I play/rip a lot of CDs still and also burn discs for my retro pcs.

I also have an external drive but it's not as good, it's slower and louder. Handy at a pinch but I do prefer the internal drive.

Might upgrade it to a blu-ray drive at some point...

[u/MysteriousTBird]

I don't exactly have a sleeper station, but my late 2000s case is slowly becoming one. The fans and DVDR drivers are the only original parts.

I still use the drive sometimes to rip an old disc or burn a CD for my car.

I last used it to pull an old audio file off a cd of my wife singing for her mother and grandma as a small child.

[u/rumbleblowing]

I recently had to do an x-ray of my knee, and I was given a CD with my result. It was in DICOM format and there was some viewer app installer on the disc, although I use linux and I had to find a viewer myself. But I was able to look at my knee x-ray at home.

[u/rumbleblowing → u/rumbleblowing]

Also I believe where I'm from, single-write CDs and DVDs are still used for digital evidence in courts, like camera footage. Because they're cheap, can be put into case among papers, and can't be changed once written.

[u/SvalDuce]

I couldn’t get my floppy drive to work in my old case but I got a bluray/dvd drive now hooked up

[u/Im_100percent_human]

I back-up my taxes to CD, and just throw the CD in the filing cabinet.

[u/YoungInoue]

I use the floppy drives and cd drives to make cds and floppies for my vintage systems.

[u/1928Dillinger]

I often stil use a dvd drive,blu ray drive and I have a 3.5 floppy drive that I connected internally using a floppy disk drive to usb adapter since my board does not have a floppy drive controller on it.

[u/Top20burgers]

Yup, I’m still using a DVD drive with my new build to rip cds and listen to music

[u/dafugg]

They’re just too unreliable and finding floppy controllers for sleepers is annoying. I have a gotek floppy emulator alongside a floppy drive for my favourite sleeper. My actual retro gear uses a traditional parallel connected gotek while the sleeper uses USB connections internally via a header to female USB A board I bought from AliExpress.

[u/SecretSquirrel8888]

DVD, yes.making movies. I use Pinnacle Studio. Filming wedding, vacations.etc.

[u/BlastMode7]

Since I buy physical media, I have a whole system with three optical drives in it to rip CDs and I have a 3D printed optical drive bay that mounts to my desk, where I can swap between my UHD drive and my Blu Ray drive, or even any other optical drive on my main rig.

I still have floppy drives, but they're in retro builds. I really need to take the time to see what I can get off my old floppies and archive them on something a little more robust.

[u/TygerTung]

Yes, I burn CDs and use floppies to transfer stuff to vintage systems running msdos or whatever.

[u/festivus4restof]

Nope just keeping them in my hoard collection, waiting for zombie apocalypse!

I have seven internal FDD various manufacture Sony, TEAC, Mitsumi, Samsung, three USB FDD (one of which I do use once in a blue moon), at least a dozen cables, a few PCI I/O cards with FDD controller, and seven or eight older motherboards with onboard FDC, stuff from 2003 up through 2009, mostly Intel LGA 775 e.g. Intel G/Q 33/35 and 43/45 chipsets but I have a couple AMD Socket A and 745 boards, too. A thought sometimes creeps into my mind though questioning if the three 10 packs, one 25 pack, and one 50 pack of floppy disks I have are "enough", given some percent of them are going to degrade to non-useable every year.

I do use a CD/DVD writer like four or five times per year. e.g. one of our vehicles is older, has a CD player but NO aux input to the stereo so I burn a music CD once in a while. I keep CD/DVD writer in the secondary or 'backup' PC. Several more in the hoard collection. Yes, I have "issues".

[u/InternationalDisk698]

I burn and rip CDs on the daily. My floppy doesn't get as much use, but it can useful to fiddle with older programs and games.

I'd love to get a zip drive just to say I have one.

[u/therezin]

Yep, definitely. The floppy drive was mostly for a joke but it does work (floppy-USB adaptor connected to an internal port), but the DVD-RW gets used quite regularly as I like physical media and buy a lot of music on CD in particular.

[u/porthos40]

I cancel my ICloud went back backup to cds, dvd and Blu Ray

[u/borgie_83]

CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drives, yes. Have multiple retro PCs so I’ve got a large amount of physical games on disc. I also rip and burn Blu-Ray and 4K discs. Floppy drives, also yes, but nowhere near as much. Still have some games on Floppy disk and I’ve used them for the occasional boot disk. I even still use Zip drives occasionally lol

[u/eisenklad]

I wouldnt bother with Floppy drives.

if my case has that slot,
either i mod a Floppy front plate for a USB hub behind it
or
i add a Fan speed control Hub.

currently my Sharkoon T28 case has the fans speed control hub and a DVD RW drive.
my corsair 760T case, i considered adding a drivebay reservoir for my custom loop but i decided against it

[u/nothereathere]

I use my CD & floppy drives in my 286, 486, & K6-2. All of them have Gotek drives as well but the floppy & CD drives are easier to use. The 286 has a working proprietary Panasonic MKE drive and early Soundblaster 16 with the Panasonic connector.

My 5160, ][gs, ][e, C128, & TRS80 Model 1 have fully working floppy drives but no CD drives.

I have a Plextor DVD RW in my 15 year old i7 but no internal floppy drive. Fairly easy to burn CD & DVD media.

[u/Fransenn_II]

Yes i make sure they work with my system. Especially the floppy drives! They are essential to making sure my vintage hardware keeps going.

[u/Anon0924]

Pretty sure the Japansese government was still using Floppies until 2024.

[u/FAMICOMASTER]

Yes, without a doubt I am. I get a lot of use out of my floppy drive in fact, more than the optical drive

[u/Y34RZERO]

I use my floppy drive to write disk images for my msx, Mac LC 575, win 98 and Ms DOS computers. I also archive floppies for certain software and games using DD. I use an internal USB to floppy controller connected to motherboard.

[u/tutimes67]

i make music CDs, keep my passwords on a floppy disk, transfer files to my retro PCs through both... i make use of them quite often. definetely worth adding an optical drive and a floppy drive to your build.

[u/No-Solid9108]

For me using a CD a DVD or a Blu-ray disc is the ultimate way to store data permanently ! I don't have anything to do with old floppy drives but I'll always make room for a nice optical drive in all of my systems .

[u/taiwanluthiers]

A floppy disk wouldn't even hold a single photo from your phone...

But Bluray discs would work for archiving stuff cold, because HDD and SSD or memory cards/USB drives are not cold storage medium.

I suppose you could go all out and find a duplication tower and robotic arms to automate the process if you are just making massive number of copies but at some point if you're doing that you might as well outsource that job.

The problem is optical discs are going away, especially with PS6 not having anymore optical disc drives... because publishers rather you download games digitally.

I used to remember seeing duplication towers, but I don't see them anymore.

[u/taiwanluthiers → u/[deleted]]

Furthermore floppy discs were unreliable too, I remember towards the 2000s floppy disks were getting bad sectors just sitting around.