What kind of optical drive do I need?

[Migel]

Some time ago, I transferred my old PC into a new case, along with a new Graphics card and PSU. Due to bad as well as capped internet, getting retail games on DVDs and patching them makes much more sense than attempting to download anything off Steam.
I feel like giving some of my older games a try again, but I can't download anything right now, so I'd need to use a DVD drive to install them. The issue is that the old disc drive has a very strange shape, it doesn't fit any of the bays and I can't seem to find adapters. The front of it is angled, the disc tray itself points sort of upwards. This fit the more compact shape of my old PC but I can't really get it in a nice space in the new case.

A temporary solution is to take the entire PC off the net, open it up, and connect the old drive to the MB, lay it on top of the case and install stuff that way, once done closing it all up again.

For a permanent solution I'd like to just buy a new disc drive and install it, but there are some questions I have here.


-There are two main kinds of DVD drives I could find on the net: "Bulk" and "Retail". I have no idea what the difference is.
-There's versions with and without "M-Disc-Support", again, I don't know if that's of interest.


I should be able to find the right dimensions easily, 5,25 is a pretty universal standard from what I can tell. I just need to know these things so I don't buy anything absolutely wrong.

And a last question:

-if I just buy an external drive that connects per USB, what would be the difference?

Thanks :D

[Sapph]

Get any USB optical drive.
There won't be any difference.

[Omega]

Which case do you have exactly?

Is the old disc drive not 5,25"?


Bulk means many. Just imagine a pallet full of these disk drives being shipped to a big company.

Retail means for the consumer. Just imagine a single nicely packed drive with a manual and all the other nick nacks.

M-Discs are discs used for archiving purposes. These disks are supposed to last 1000 years. This is not something you will need.


No need to overthink this unless you have special needs, just go to a local PC shop and pick up the first random $15 disc drive you see.

[Revelene]

Any random CD or DVD drive will do. They're all about the same, especially for your usage.

FYI, many games these days are not really on disc, usually just opening a link to the Steam download, or other client download. They usually have absolutely no game data on the disc, or very little.

Welcome to 2018, where everything is online streaming or downloading. Discs are basically old school format these days. I haven't had a disc drive in any of my PCs in several years.

Perhaps you need to look into a different ISP? I wouldn't accept poor performance, nor a data cap.

[Astraea Kisaragi]

While rarely used, I think its still a good thing to have a DVD burner just in case. Doesnt matters what brand, as I know LG, ASUS and Lite-On what is arround, others pretty much stopped making them.

Go bulk, by retail you usually pay extra for the box/manual.

[Migel]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Omega:

Which case do you have exactly?

Is the old disc drive not 5,25"?

It's a be quiet! Silent base 800, just about the most generic case possible.
The drive looks to be 5,25". But the front is angled and it's very flat. It also has some metal fittings from the old PC on it, which make it too big for the bay and I am struggling to remove them. It was a prebuilt PC and I doubt it was ever meant to be taken apart. Right now there's a tiny screw I need to get out, and I don't have a screwdriver that has the right head and is small enough to squeeze between the metal plates.

The drive sais it's a "UJ8E1" but googling it, these sem to be rather abundant, but none of the images have the angled bezel or metal frame on it. I'll try to get these metal parts off. Might have to use a knifetip.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Revelene:

Any random CD or DVD drive will do. They're all about the same, especially for your usage.

FYI, many games these days are not really on disc, usually just opening a link to the Steam download, or other client download. They usually have absolutely no game data on the disc, or very little.

Welcome to 2018, where everything is online streaming or downloading. Discs are basically old school format these days. I haven't had a disc drive in any of my PCs in several years.

Perhaps you need to look into a different ISP? I wouldn't accept poor performance, nor a data cap.

Yeah, I've noticed that especially with Bethesda games, I bought Doom on a "Disc", 3GB on disc, ~70 to go. Haven't played it to this day.

As for ISP, it's a bad situation. Nothing really aviable out here in rural germany. Fibre wire is being installed rn, and our current contract ends in two weeks. Best case scenario, fibre wire is complete and I have great net. Worst case scenario, our old contract is over and fibre wire is still under construction = No internet or another year of this same old contract. (By which point I should have graduated and moved out)

[Supafly]

Like you said you won't use it much anyway so

Any USB 3 drive would be fine.
Or a standard 5.25 drive. DVD or even Bluray (if you want,)

Just look for the fastest read speed you can find. all the rest is rwally important for installing games/software.

[Migel]

So I ripped off the front bezel and cut off the metal stuff.
It's way too small for a 5.25" bay. As a temporary solution I can let it lay around in there, it's not touching a PCB or anything, and it's not gonna move around either. Still, that's the ugliest thing I've ever seen.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/426478080861667341/473514344890630164/DSC_2925.jpg

I'll probably be getting a USB one, yes.

[Cathulhu]

That looks more like something out of a laptop. Could be custom made for a pre-built system.

[Omega]

Yeah that is a laptop drive.

The drive most likely uses SATA slimline, you will need a special adapter to put it in your desktop. You are basically forced to get a new drive.

[Viper]

DVD Optical drives are vey inexpensive You can get an Asus 24X for $25 from NewEgg that is made to fit in that drive bay perfectly.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

[Migel]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Viper:

DVD Optical drives are vey inexpensive You can get an Asus 24X for $25 from NewEgg that is made to fit in that drive bay perfectly.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

I've had my eyes on that, thanks. I'll probably just order it now.

[Null_User]

I just got an external Blue Ray drive and forever saved myself the trouble of adding optical drives to my computer. Nowadays, it's very uncommon to need a game spinning on your optical drive for it to work. And for any old games that still need such a thing, most are unlocked so you can make an ISO of them and mount that when needed.

[Migel]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Hanuke:

I just got an external Blue Ray drive and forever saved myself the trouble of adding optical drives to my computer. Nowadays, it's very uncommon to need a game spinning on your optical drive for it to work. And for any old games that still need such a thing, most are unlocked so you can make an ISO of them and mount that when needed.

Well, it's not about using the disc to run the game, it's more about installing fractions of big games off discs so I don't have to download the entire thing.

That's what 35KB/s does to you.

[Raoul]

Back in time every build would have an 5.15" internal dvd-rw optical drive but nowadays the price of external ones are pretty much a couple quid more and have that portability aspect. Don't go for the dirt cheap ones they tend to fail a lot get a known brand and you should be good to go.

You can still get an internal drive if you prefer though literally impossible to find all black ones nowadays and if you got a windowed case looks horrible af.

[Null_User]

Początkowo opublikowane przez VSF Migel the sloth:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Hanuke:

I just got an external Blue Ray drive and forever saved myself the trouble of adding optical drives to my computer. Nowadays, it's very uncommon to need a game spinning on your optical drive for it to work. And for any old games that still need such a thing, most are unlocked so you can make an ISO of them and mount that when needed.

Well, it's not about using the disc to run the game, it's more about installing fractions of big games off discs so I don't have to download the entire thing.

That's what 35KB/s does to you.

Then it's even easier. Just about anything that can read your current media can be used. And you save your computer from having yet another piece of hardware clogging everything inside. i picked a blu ray drive in the case I come around a blu ray movie, but a dvd drive will work the same for software installation.