No CD/DVD on new laptops?
Hi, I'm helping my BIL shop for a new laptop. He wants a Lenovo, but we're finding the lower end of the line ($500) says there is no CD/DVD. Anyone know why? Obsolete??? Thanks
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Most software is downloaded now saving the manufacture from shipping and media costs.
I sometimes play CD music, or play a DVD movie on my laptop. I suppose they want me to buy them again, i.e., iTunes or Amazon movies.
I bought my music on vinyl, 8-track, cassette and CD. How many times do I have to buy the same music on a different format? /rant off 
and also because, as someone else pointed out, we are moving computer stuff to more centralized settings (the clouds) where costs can be reduced by eliminating redundancy, security can be better because experienced people are usually better at it than individuals (though not always), and it frees you from having to replace hardware that has grown obsolete by turning computing into a commodity that you get just by plugging into the wall, so to speak, kind of like we get electricity or phone.
Another reason is that a DVD or CD drive is mechanical, and they break. Not being mechanical gives the USB drive their other advantage - they are much, much faster. It's just transistors (plus some stuff) that store info and are read or written to. No moving parts, so more likely to not break. Although the USB drive might be damaged by water (or picking up a laptop and breaking the flash drive off in the slot). The circuit quality varies so some might more readily lose their programming or have an open or short circuit, but generally speaking they are pretty reliable, and good quality flash drives last a long while if kept safe. Not as long as DVDs, I suspect, but as other posters pointed out the storage function is starting to be taken over by others outside, and they can often do do it more securely and more cost effectively than an individual or many businesses, if nothing else as another, offsite backup.
Flash drives are, generally, not meant to be permanent, so if one really needs the data, make two copies. They are relatively cheap for most users. And if you really, really need it, put a third copy in your online storage, the cloud.
(If you just want to be reminded of it forever, put in on DU. But I digress, that's another post.) 
Flash drives are much more flexible. The program stored on a cd is usually called an "ISO" image, and you can download them and write them to the USB drive, then run or install from that if need be. New version comes out? No problem (you make regular backups, right?). You just overwrite the new version onto the old flash drive, no need to "burn" a new one.
DVD - 4 or 8 gb file storage
Flash drive - 4 gb, or 8, 16, 32, 64, 128...and you can just put it in your pocket. File storage, or you can run whole operating systems from it, without a hard drive.
I am guessing nearly every laptop comes with version 2 or Version 3 USB ports, and (they are backward compatible, so a Version 2 device works in a version 3 slot, and version 3 equipment usually works in a version 2 plug. Many laptops have multiple USB ports for this. If not, you can buy a small USB hub and plug 3 or 4 in at once.
You mentioned Lenovo. I bought a couple of Core2duo Thinkpads (just before the I3, 5, and 7) laptops off of ebay. I'm only 3 or 4 hundred into one of them, and it runs more of a load than the desktop I replaced it with. Took out the DVD drive, put the hard drive in its place, increased the ram.
In the space left when I moved the hard disk I installed a solid state hard drive, or SSD, something else you will see out there. Smaller capacity and more expensive than a hard drive, but like having a big USB flash drive in your computer. Much faster most of the time. I can run most anything someone can run on their desktop or phone, and most times faster than a desktop that has a hard drive. This particular one is running not only the operating system but "virtualization" software that lets me build real machines and run them on the same resources as this one, even Apple stuff (though I have to find another copy of a later mac software for a "hackintosh", but that's another experiment for later).
One thing you were interested in
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Your old DVD's and CD's can be written to or read from using that now external DVD with a cable that plugs into...the USB port. So they are still useful, and some software is still distributed that way, though not much.
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I run a couple different operating systems with a little network of half a dozen machines, all on that one laptop. And to change it around, one of the options is set up on a USB stick, so I just reboot with that in there, and "poof", completely different system. I only say that to suggest that freed from the DVD and hard drive, these are much faster and lighter and use less power, and are much more capable than they used to be.
Oh yeah, the cloud(s). If you miss storing things on DVD, you can get a little free storage with gmail, or yahoo mail, or a third party like dropbox or another online storage place, more for a fee. Or if you have your own website, you can store stuff there. You can access those from anywhere.
Your BIL may find DVD's aren't missed that much after a whjile. I wish you luck.
micro$oft servers, desktops, all sorts of things over the past couple years, and the only things I can think of that came on a cd was a driver for a USB network adapter (one of those 3" jobs) and my printer, both of which I wound up downloading and installing.
On the other hand, for where there is no connectivity my wife wanted to watch her Zumba dvds on a laptop w/o a drive, so I copied them to a flash drive. She uses VTC and watches them here and at work. Easier to carry than dvds, for her. I do think that perhaps we have passed the time when they might have begun to distribute software on USB drives very much because of the online storage capabilities we have now.
The cloud thing is an interesting problem. I'm quite sure much is being scanned by the NSA and private companies where it can be, but you can stop a lot with encryption and just good general security practices. Some cloud providers have better reliability - there are all sorts of variables depending on the case. Also, there are lots of hybrid implementations, where part is stored "out there" and part kept in house.
If one's need for security is greater than that then you just keep it somewhere private, provide your own secure access (or not) from the outside.
It's hard to let go of what works, or at least used to work. I got rid of some 8" floppy drives and their computer a few years ago. They still worked, and you could go make lunch while they were accessing nearly any piece of data. I felt kinda bad after I read this...
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Contrary to what cartoons may have you believe, there’s no giant red button that detonates America’s land-based nuclear missiles. They’re actually operated by -- wait for it -- old-school computers that run 8-inch floppy disks.
On a recent tour of one of the nation’s Air Force nuclear missile facilities in Wyoming, Leslie Stahl of CBS' "60 Minutes" made the surprising discovery about the archaic state of technology inside the facilities. Dana Meyers, a 23-year-old missileer working at the facility, told Stahl of the floppy disks: "I had never seen one of these until I got down in missiles."
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Here.
I should have donated them to a Maker's garage. Who knows what advantage that might have given the 99%. Or maybe they have one without them
