This week we have been reporting that the newly shipping Power Macintosh G5s are using the Sony DW-U10A DVD write mechanism - already used in some flat-panel iMac models - and that Apple's official ...

Most modern laptops lack an optical drive, yet CDs and DVDs are still used in many households, whether for playing old movies, installing older software, or even for making physical backups. An ...

Most optical drives today are combo CD/DVD drives that support all the DVD and CD formats. The speeds of the drives are rated by their DVD-ROM and CD-ROM transfer rates. The original DVD drive (1x) ...

Do combo movie-watching and music-recording drives have the write stuff? Apparently PC manufacturers think so. After a slow start, combination CD-rewritable and DVD drives are showing up in computers ...

Most optical drives today are combo CD/DVD drives that support DVDs and all the CD formats: CD audio, CD-ROM, CD-R and CD-RW. The speeds of the drives are rated by their CD-ROM and DVD transfer rates.

Optical drives are still practical for many users, whether to play old CDs and DVDs, install software, or create backups—especially with modern laptops, which are usually supplied without a drive.