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.

In the era of digital streaming, the market is full of wireless speakers that will play content from your smartphone or pull it down from the Internet directly over WiFi. But if you’re feeling a bit ...

Optical drives no longer come pre-installed in most PCs and laptops, yet they’re still indispensable for many users. Whether for playing old DVDs, installing ancient software from CDs, or burning data ...

I've been a Plextor fan forever, and I've got an old rig I use just for burning where the drive I use for extracting (an UltraPlex 40X SCSI CD-ROM) seems to have finally died.<BR><BR>(I've updated the ...