I am a computer technician from the past 5 years and a technology and computer freak all my life. I have written lot of computer quotations for my clients and from the past 6 months while writing any quotation the one component that I have two thoughts about adding in quotation is the DVD drive. It costs almost $17 i.e nearly ₹1000 and is the least or never used component inside a computer system. For the past 2 years I have personally changed 3 DVD drives in my own PC and now don’t even require it. Since Apple’s MacBook Air and Ultrabooks from different computer company has parted away with the disc drive completely here are 5 reasons why you should too.

1. Fading Technology

Disc drive for computers was first demonstrated in 1972 but consumer level disc drives weren’t available till 1975. From then on disc drive has been in every computer and laptop till Apple killed it in its new MacBook Air Line Up. Since then the end of DVD drive was bound to happen. And since there is no Research & Development happening in the field of DVD drive it is better to kill it off from your computer system or maybe in your next computer quotation.

2. Cheap Quality DVD Drives

Many major PC brands have closed manufacturing DVD drives totally only a few companies like Samsung, Sony and LG manufacture it and as I said in the above point there is no R&D in the DVD Drive field so all we get is cheap quality DVD drives which stops working within 3-6 months (personal and clients experience) after buying. In my case as I wrote in the first paragraph I had to change 3 DVD drives in just a span of 2 years.

3. Technology is Moving in the Cloud

From past 5 years major Research & Development is happening in the field of Cloud Storage and Services and lot of importance has been given to it. Microsoft along with Google and Dropbox has been a major player in the cloud service field. And since all backups happen over the cloud instantly and with great ease there is no need for DVD and DVD drives to back up your data. With just a click of a button you can securely backup, save and edit your files in the cloud without the worry of them being accidentally lost, stolen or misplaced which happens in most of the cases with DVDs. So instead of DVD and DVD drives; moving to the cloud is a better option.

4. Adds to E-Waste

Since the birth of computers most environmentalist have been worried about waste caused by electronics which is simply called as E-Waste. Since DVDs and DVD drives as said in the earlier point are made of cheap quality they are bound to die and to be thrown away. I didn’t saw it back then but I had simply thrown out several CD drives and couple of DVD drives in waste. I own a computer for the past 12 years and can’t even think of the number of CDs and DVDs I’ve thrown away in these years. Since a bad DVD and DVD drive is not of much use people do throw it away (until you don’t hang it your car) and so I believe not buying DVD drive is the only way to avoid increasing the e-waste. Just for fun here is a link to the discussion; should waste be thrown into the space?

5. Development of Newer Technologies

The immediate replacement to a DVD and DVD drive are External USB Storage Drives. Back then when USB Storage Drives were launched they demanded a lot of premium but as we move into the technological boom there has been a drastic decrease in the price of these storage devices such as Pen drives and External Hard Disk and since they don’t require any special software or any other device to transfer data they are more easy to use then DVD drives. So you don’t need those complicated softwares to write data on your disk using DVD drives and it even had a risk of writing failure which means your DVD goes into waste without being of any use. Even though most of the software even today comes in disk drive like your Operating Systems, Antivirus or Games DVDs you can still download these software from developers website and just use the Activation code provided in the package and now you can even buy these activation codes off the Internet.

So should my next PC be without DVD Drive?

Not necessarily, it truly depends on what your demands, situations and requirements are. Even if you don’t own Internet you can still not buy DVD drive as you can get drivers, software and other important documents through pen drives from a friend who owns Internet. But if you’re keen on trying new High-Definition Games or Blu-Ray movies then buying DVD drive or a Blu-Ray Drive could be necessary because downloading 5-15GB of data from the net can be tiresome. Even if you do own Internet then these problems might haunt you so it all comes down to personal choice.

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