Don’t forget that there are also privacy and cost concerns with using the internet for archiving, and reliability problems with hard disks and flash drives.

You probably won’t find a good storage site that doesn’t have a monthly fee. That would make the cost of long-term storage online much higher than with DVDs, regardless of Internet speeds.

More importantly (to me, anyway), who can you trust with all your data? I would not be comfortable transferring my entire hard disk over the internet for permanent storage anywhere. Call me paranoid. It’s not a matter of speed, it’s a matter of privacy and security.

DVDs are the cheapest and safest archiving method. The cost per byte of hard disks and flash drives are still much higher, and even if they drop below DVDs (I guess it’s bound to happen eventually), I’d still prefer using read-only media like DVDs for archiving than read/write media. With read/write media like hard disks and flash drives, all your data is vulnerable to software failure. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take. Bugs happen; there were even several Apple-supplied software updates in recent years that erased entire volumes. (I remember an iTunes update that erased volumes with certain naming patterns, and two or three incremental Panther updates that fried FireWire HDs using a certain chipset, for example.)

I can’t imagine not using optical drives anytime soon. However, not using INTERNAL optical drives is easy to imagine — I always wind up buying external drives before they become standard internally, and they’re always faster than Apple’s internal drives for years to come, too. So I rarely use my internal drive as it is.

What he said.

You probably won’t find a good storage site that doesn’t have a monthly fee. That would make the cost of long-term storage online much higher than with DVDs, regardless of Internet speeds.

More importantly (to me, anyway), who can you trust with all your data? I would not be comfortable transferring my entire hard disk over the internet for permanent storage anywhere. Call me paranoid. It’s not a matter of speed, it’s a matter of privacy and security.

DVDs are the cheapest and safest archiving method. The cost per byte of hard disks and flash drives are still much higher, and even if they drop below DVDs (I guess it’s bound to happen eventually), I’d still prefer using read-only media like DVDs for archiving than read/write media. With read/write media like hard disks and flash drives, all your data is vulnerable to software failure. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take. Bugs happen; there were even several Apple-supplied software updates in recent years that erased entire volumes. (I remember an iTunes update that erased volumes with certain naming patterns, and two or three incremental Panther updates that fried FireWire HDs using a certain chipset, for example.)

I can’t imagine not using optical drives anytime soon. However, not using INTERNAL optical drives is easy to imagine — I always wind up buying external drives before they become standard internally, and they’re always faster than Apple’s internal drives for years to come, too. So I rarely use my internal drive as it is.

I also use a SD card in my digital camera which transforms into a usb card through folding. Like this I don’t need a card reader anymore.

I s’pose there is a psychological aspect to the delivery of software or media… an actual, tactile, physically manifest representation of what one might be purchasing. Personally, I honestly don’t need three or four ‘bonus’ disks or elaborate packaging. Less is more for me. I truly don’t need more stuff to take care of. These days, when I come across a disk that has been mishandled, I simply toss it in the garbage.

Optical media at this point is nothing more than a security blanket. It won’t last past this decade. Flash media seems to be popular. I can imagine a myriad of alternatives. Faster networks schemes? Better encryption/compression schemes? Organic media storage? Nanotechnology?

The problem with anticipating future tech just at this moment is paradigms are changing exceedingly rapidly. Commercial forces, the 20th century drivers of innovation, are becoming severely fragmented. The human condition seems to be having a hard time keeping pace with the human experience. Because of that dynamic, floppy disks still pop up, optical media (realistically obsolete) is still viable commercially. Who truly needs optical media? Nobody. But the security of having a physical object in hand is still strongly desired.

Don’t have a Macbook Air. Don’t want one. Have an optical drive on all my computers. I use them only to convert the data to my current archiving scheme.

My computers these days are laptops. I’d love to have a few new options on my laptops, I want smaller, less obtrusive, more durable laptops. If sacrificing a DVD drive would give me more RAM or a longer battery life or a solar charger or a faster, larger external bootable flash drive or a powerfully fast satellite ‘net connection… then by all means, bring it on. How great would it be to only have to carry a small hard drive and plug my entire workflow into a kiosk or some sort of slave computer? Or hey, how ’bout an external bluetooth drive i could exploit with my iPhone? hey, how ’bout a personal pocket device that serves all of these purposes?

CD/DVD drives are just the smallest part of the changes ahead. We are officially in the computer revolution V 2.0. The Macbook Air is only the roughest sketch of what’s coming soon.

People need to stop thinking in terms of what’s established. What’s established may have been a huge source of revenue for some, but actually computing to date is nothing more than a basic proof of concept.

I have more on my pocket sized phone than any CD or DVD ever dreamed of. Why the hell can’t i just transfer the print file off my damned phone?

Truth is, I can do it right now. And heaven knows, it would certainly be a convenience and a service to me.

Gizmodo told me ’bout a bluetooth phone mic designed to be installed in a person’s teeth. Soon enough, the entire phone will be installed in a person’s skull. (Snow Crash, Neil Stephenson).

Critics of the Macbook Air’s lack of optical drive are already obsolete, they simply don’t know it and have enough capital to make their collective voice matter.

They’ll be ground under by the nimble clever minds who can exploit new ways to use existing and nascent tech. It won’t take long.