Purpose of 2 or more optical drives?

[GoStumpy]

Wondering what the reasoning is for 5 front optical bays on some cases?

Ideas welcome!

 

[smakme7757]

Years ago i had 2x optical drives. A normal CD drive and a CD-Burner so i could burn discs on the fly. It could still be used now but CD/DVDs are rarely used these days, so most people don't bother. In some cases downloading the file is faster than copying it from media.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

Optical drives, fan controllers, sound card expansion slots, etc.

 

[DavidAtncus]

I use two 5.25 bays right now.

1 for a BD/DVD combo drive.
1 for a "Tray" for sata hard drives.

I like a "Sata Tray" so i don't need an external (slow) HD sitting there for backups...
The PC BD/DVD drive eliminates the need for a stand alone BD/DVD player.

I'm considering buying a new smaller case because i don't right now see the need for more 5.25 bays.
Other people may use bays for other Peripherals...

My primary PC is used for HTPC/General Purpose/Office.

 

[janas19]

Wondering what the reasoning is for 5 front optical bays on some cases?

Ideas welcome!

5 front optical bays is excessive for my purposes. I rarely use more than one, 2 at the most if I'm burning from one to the other.

I dunno, maybe it's just a standard on full-tower cases?

 

[Charlie98]

I've got a card reader, a fan controller and DVD player in 3 of my 5 slots...

I used to have 2 CD drives, one to rip, one to burn... but those were the old days.

 

[mfenn]

I have a DVD-RW and BD-ROM because I bought them a few years ago when BD-RW were significantly more expensive than BD-ROM. Really though, I think that cases have a lot of 5.25" bays for legacy reasons. I'd much rather have more 3.5" and 2.5" bays and not have to fool with converters.

 

[corkyg]

My two desktops have two opticals each. One internal and one external. Copying disks directly is still useful when creating 25-30 copies of photo CDs to mail to people. I do that frequently.

 

[atrus.eoa]

I have these little drawers I got on clearance in my extra (one fan controller, one optical drive, and then these drawers, which I'll use to hold the various small bits that can accumulate. I use a wireless mouse/keyboard (mostly) and I prefer rechargeable batteries, so I'll always keep a charged set in the drawers, plus if I have like headphone adapters or USB dongles that I'm not using at that particular moment. I'll also put spare case bits in there, like case screws or MB lifts (if that MB didn't need as many as were given with the case).

 

[snickersnack]

Wondering what the reasoning is for 5 front optical bays on some cases?

Ideas welcome!

Isn't obvious? You need one bay for your optical disc and four more for your A: and B: drives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_Floppy_Drive_With_DOS.jpg

 

[GoStumpy]

Isn't obvious? You need one bay for your optical disc and four more for your A: and B: drives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_Floppy_Drive_With_DOS.jpg

And one for my ZIP drive! Oh and my tape recorder backup system

 

[NTMBK]

I usually install one of those fancy motorised cupholders.

 

[Sidekicknichola]

I have 2 -
dvd and a bluray... only because I bought the dvd to tide me over until I found a cheap bluray... which I eventually did and now have both.

 

[greenhawk]

my current case has 4 bays. Using one for a BluRay/DVD burner and the other has a 4-in-3 HDD cooler system.

If I had a extra bay I would have a sata hot swap bay installed.