A hardware feature that used to be standard on computers and consoles has quietly disappeared. Several practical shifts explain why it stopped mattering.

If you bought a computer between 2003 and 2008, you probably have some money coming to you. It's part of a class action settlement against six makers of computer disc drives. The lawsuit claimed the ...

Before flash drives and SSDs, storage came in giant cabinets with swappable packs. Here's what was inside, and why it took up so much space.

New physics research out of the University of California Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz) offers new insight into a poorly understood aspect of disc drive failures, according to industry experts, though ...

Optical drives let your computer read and interact with discs like CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays. While nearly every computer had them a few years ago, they're rare to see on new computers now. If you need ...

At the heart of every PC is a storage drive, which stores the Microsoft Windows operating system and also contains space for your personal data, documents, photos, and applications. Regardless of ...

From what I've noticed, most games to be installed can be downloaded off the internet without physical media, let alone the need for any optical drive. At worst, you may want a DVD drive (and dollars ...