Computers & Networking

[craigandnay]

I'm looking at buying a laptop for our son who is a junior at college. He and I agree on one of the computers but can't seem to find any information about the DVD/CD optical drive speeds. It is an Hp G6-1D16DX. The SKU is 4815074. Can you help me, please? Thanks

[NoNoBadDog]

Why is the drive speed important?  All computer optical drives read discs just fine, and the "burn speed" is only a guideline.  Many of the "fast" burners only work with certain blank discs, and most people buy what is on sale.  I would not let optical drive speed sway a purchase decision at all.

[SlimJim77 · Accepted solution]

Have to agree with Dog here. Optical drive speed should be at the bottom of your list of actual concerns regarding a laptop. Optical media is a dieing breed, anyway.

[seekrtz · Accepted solution]

Personally, I go the opposite route and consider no optical drive to be a requirement for my next laptop (ultrabook) or hybrid touch device running Windows 8.  USB drives or online installation only!

Installing Windows 7/8 from a USB device is insanely fast; it makes you never want to use a Windows DVD ever again

[xl · Accepted solution]

Having a fast speeds makes reading quicker.  However, I rarely use my drive for data anymore with USB options.

With regards to burn speeds.  I purposely choose the slowest speeds to ensure the burn is good.  Fast burns has a higher likelihood of data fading too quickly.  Critical for backup disks years down the road when you need it.

[NoNoBadDog · Accepted solution]

I also never burn faster than 4x; not only does it insure the "best burn", but hte resultant disc is able to be read by a wider variety of other burners.  Burning at too fast a speed results in the lands/grooves not being as high contrast to each other, and some drives have trouble with that.

[hockeycanuckjc Trusted Contributor]

I just want to add that currently on the market, most optical drive speeds in notebooks are 8X for DVD Burning and 24x for CD Burning. If it were any faster it might cause hardware stability problems such as cracked / shattered discs. I can't prove this one nor do I have the sufficient research to think why it would be this way, but its just the way laptops are built. If your looking for even faster speeds, a USB 2.0 external DVD Burner could be purchased, normally ones with A/C cords and bigger chasis have the faster burn rates. 

[SoMeAm]

Hello craigandnay,

Thank you very much for considering the purchase of an HP notebook.  And thanks for your inquiry to which you have certainly received expert responses from the members on this forum.  Kudos to them!  Hope you also are satisfied with the responses and let us know if you have other questions.

Regards,