Wednesday afternoon a customer asked me to back up a specific file and rather than bug her for a USB drive I figured I’d save time and copy it to a CD. Little did I know the store I was working in didn’t have CDs or DVDs. Thinking it was a fluke I called the other stores to no avail.
Brattleboro laughed in my ear when I made the request to have a driver deliver some to the store I was in. Greenfield couldn’t remember the last time they used optical media. Gardner finally had one CD that was covered in so much dust it was questionable whether it would work. My Athol customer told me it was no problem to deliver a USB drive.
Optical media is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, I can’t remember the last time I burned a CD or DVD for work or personal reasons. Outside of the physical CDs that both Apple and Microsoft require me to keep, I can’t think of any discs I need to own. Now that I think about it, those licenses are so old I could probably toss them with no repercussions.
Audio CDs, perhaps one of the largest uses for optical media, have been replaced by other technologies. MP3 files stored on a phone or portable radio are much quicker and easier to manage. Online music services like Pandora strip away the need for owning a complete CD only to listen to one song.
Movie DVDs, like audio CDs, have been pushed aside to make room for online streaming services like Netflix. Last week I noticed my favorite department store stocked more hardware for streaming video than DVD and Blu-Ray players combined. Now that internet based video services broadcast in high resolution there is no benefit to watching on a lower quality DVD.
When I think of storing data I no longer place optical media at the top of my list. Judging from how much dust was on the few CDs I located Wednesday, I’m going to say it’s been a while since I’ve thought about my options. Today’s technology offers better, more convenient and reliable storage options.
Files are becoming larger and optical media simply hasn’t kept up with the times. New technology has been developed over the past few years that has more capacity and is much easier to use. Some computer manufacturers, including us, have stopped including optical drives by default unless the customer requests a DVD burner.
USB thumb drives are the number one method of storing data. Rather than take a chance a CD burned in one computer will work in another, it’s easier to simply move files over USB to a thumb drive. Because USB drives are available in capacities many times larger than optical media, transferring very large files is also much easier.
Much to my chagrin, cloud storage is also displacing some of the need for optical discs. One of the many uses for CDs was transporting files from one place to another. Services like Dropbox make it easy and convenient to transfer files from one location to another.
Sometimes I show my age when working with technologies and young people. There was a time when our only option was to back files up to a CD and actually mail the disc. Today’s options are designed to make any amount of data travel at lightning speeds which baffles me even more.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can call him at (978) 919-8059 or visit www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)