Laptop with optical drive

[PCaddict9]

Does anyone have a recommendation for a laptop with a DVD or Blu-ray internal drive.

 

[you2]

I personally would get an external drive. They are cheap. I understand the draw for an internal one but unless you use it frequently it is just not worse the hassle. I guess this doesn't really answer your question but rather is a suggestion for an alternative approach. Even for my home builds I've dropped in the internal drive.

 

[corkyg]

My venerable Lenovo T510 came with an optical drive. I replaced it with an Ultrabay adapter to hold a 2nd SSD. I keep the optical to use when necessary (simple replacement) but frankly, I have not had to do that for over a year. In effect, it amounts to having an external option as described by You2.

I'm sure there are other brands with swappable optical/HDDs.

 

[PCaddict9]

Thanks for all the suggestions. The need to carry around an external drive along with the laptop kind of defeats the point of portability.

 

[corkyg]

Take a look at Lenovo Y510p and model #59367273 in particular. The removable optical is no big item for travel. It is thin and light, and mine travels easily in my laptop bag.

 

[Valantar]

What kind of use is the laptop for? Anything demanding? Or just light office use and the like? Do you need a lot of battery life? Light weight? And what do you need the optical drive for? How often do you need it? If you answer this, we'll be able to give you better advice.

 

[PCaddict9]

I am looking for a fairly high end Laptop with a good keyboard and an NVMe m.2 drive

 

[Valantar]

Okay. For gaming? Video editing? Programming? CAD? Something else? Different use cases require different hardware, after all. And do you care about weight/size/battery life/portability?

 

[PCaddict9]

Using it for gaming and some cad. Also lots of typing. I don't care about the weight but would like a replaceable battery.

 

[xgsound]

A reason a DVD would be useful is to remove it and use a DVD caddy to create backups or clones at SATA speed.
You can also us the caddy to rotate 2.5 in data drives making your data library of infinite size or boot alternate OSs if your bios supports it from 2nd SATA port.
You can always plug the DVD back in when/ if needed.
Here is the one I use: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005G4RZNU/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[PCaddict9]

That's a tremendous idea! Thanks ever so much for the idea. I knew there was even more reasons to have a DVD in my laptop.

 

[JeffMD]

You should choose a laptop that suits you while ignoring the need for a dvd drive bay. Everything you can do with that drive bay can be done with the usb 3.0 port and you may prefer a slim line model.

 

[Commodus]

I would honestly focus on finding the best laptops for the task first, and an optical drive second. Unless there's a specific I-absolutely-need-this reason, of course.

It's simple: there's a very real chance you won't need that optical drive (or even the bay it occupies) a year or two from now. If you get an external optical drive and realize you don't need it that much later on, you can leave it at home. However, getting an integrated optical drive means you're saddled with that bulky design for the rest of the laptop's life, even if you replace the optical storage with a hard drive or SSD.