DVDs, like CDs, require a laser-powered mechanism in order to read or write to them. An optical drive pairs that system with a mechanism for spinning the disc in question, so that all areas of the disc are accessible to the lens. They were fist made commercially available by Sony in 1987.
For the first few years, the technology was used primarily for music CDs and software CD-ROMs. As this was the primary means of installing new software on a computer, most PCs included an optical drive in their design. This gave users the freedom to use new programs, listen to music straight from their computers, and, in many cases, get access to the internet.
The introduction of the DVD in 1997 added even more uses for optical drives. Because of their high data storage capacity, they were the perfect vehicle for consuming video content like movies and TV shows. For the first several years of their use, internet connections fast enough to download large video files in a reasonable timeframe were hard to come by. This helped sustain the need for optical drives, updated for the new disc format, in computers during this period. While downloading music and software from the internet was becoming much more of a possibility for many consumers, it would still be a few more years before the same would be true of video content.
Best Selling Ultra Slim External DVD Drive For Mac Laptops Posted on by Richard in ACCESSORIES Contemporary laptops are made extremely thin for the sake of being low-weight. The other three external hard drives on our list contain one terabyte of space. You could potentially store about 17,000 hours of music, 1,000 hours of raw video, over 300,000 photos, or 500 hours of films on a hard drive with one terabyte of space. All of that said, having an external drive with the most space isn’t always what’s important.
External Dvd Drive Review 2018
By the early 2010s, it became more and more common for computer manufacturers to eschew optical drives from their machines altogether. This was due primarily to the amount of physical space they demand. As laptops and even desktop computers began confining themselves to slimmer and lighter profiles, there simply wasn't room for the mechanics of a disc drive. At the same time, it became increasingly possible to download and stream movies and other video content over the average home internet connection.
Best External Dvd Drive
Of course, many people still need a way to read CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs. Whether you've amassed a collection of your own or want to watch something that's not available for streaming, the only option may be to buy an external drive. Thankfully, there are several reliable models on the market, and most of them feature simple plug-and-play functionality.