this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2026
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I was browsing a technical store's website and came across some DVDs. On sale. You'd need an optical drive to use them, unless you use them to decorate your walls

If you do use them, what do you use them for and why do you not just use hard drives, SSDs or USB thumb drives instead?

This is not a hate post. My whole existence is living in the 90's, so... :P

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[–] Jyek@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I mentioned it to my partner the other day but medical contraceptive packaging looks remarkably similar to how storage media was packaged in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Take the logos off and play a game of DVDs or Plan B?

Sure! First prize: a cracked Grand Theft Auto 3 Second prize: strawberry flavored

[–] yesman@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I have a small library of music CDs, because I liked music before there was an internet. I recently ripped them to .FLACC.

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[–] Mpatch@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Fuck bud I still use floppy disks. It's damn hard to find a pc with a dedicated floppy drive. Those usb floppy drives fail writing to floppy more often than not.

[–] emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Cool! Are floppys still being manufactured? I'd love to make a rescue boot floppy for when I need to do maintenance on my system!

[–] malios@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

They are not being manufactured anymore but it is still possible to buy new old stock. One guy is trying to keep them in circulation (he owns floppydisk.com) and I found a somewhat recent article that has some good info as well: https://www.raconteur.net/technology/the-floppygeddon-cometh

[–] Mpatch@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yeah I kina lucked out I found a 10 pack of new ones on Amazon about 2 years ago. And recently, while cleaning out an old auto performance shop, there was like 2 or 3 55gal drums full of used and new floppy disks.

Also more recently there was something about Japan finaly upgrading their i.t infrastructure from floppy disks to more modern tech.

Hell apparently they still make cassette tapes for use in prisons because you can't make a shank out of one with the materials they use for them.

[–] emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

And you did not share that loot of floppys with the rest of the world? D:

The inmates at the prison that I was working at all had off brand CD Walkmans.

[–] Mpatch@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I thought about it. But I all belonged to a dead guy. And I thought to my self. This is cool and all and I can nit pick through this load of stuff yes But he is dead and I'm alive. And this stuff didn't do him any good in the end. So I'd rather not waste my time.

I did find this though funny enough there is an archive online of all the contents in it nsfw

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Casettes are being reintroduced in the (indie) music industry as well

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah it’s really bizarre seeing my teen get excited about buying cassettes and vinyl

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[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Offsite Backups of Family Photos

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[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I use them for archival backups of personal media.

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[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

physical media has a place with collectors and appreciators and i hope that doesn't ever stop being true

its resistant to censorship and it gives creators a thing to sell

[–] ClipperDefiance@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I have a stack of blank CD-Rs. I mostly bought them for running homebrew and import games on my Dreamcast. Recently I did find some old PC games that wouldn't work under WINE, so I ended up using some of the CD-Rs to reinstall Windows XP on my Thinkpad T60. That took 8 discs.

Holy shit this comment unlocked stuff in me. You can't just carelessly throw around terms like "Dreamcast", " Windows XP" and "that took 8 discs".

[–] FalschgeldFurkan@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (3 children)

BD-Rs for cold storage, they are cheaper than HDDs/SSDs and offer a fast solution to clear up space from existing hot storage without actually getting rid of the data. USB sticks are not suitable for archival, they degrade very soon.

And they also easily become bricked and unusable... Discs definitely are reliable. :)

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[–] MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I used to have one of those little joke .exe files called Cupholder. If you clicked on it, it opened the CD drive.

😂 legendary

[–] jqubed@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Rarely; I think the last time was a live CD to try Linux on an older computer

[–] Bruncvik@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

My stereo still uses CD's, so that's what I use. I have a DVD burner in my PC, and a spindle of blank CD-R's and anothet of blank DVD-R's. I use the former to burn music CD's for my stereo, and the latter for extra backup whenever I'm about to upgrade my hardware (once every 10 eyars or so). This is on addition to a NAS and an external drive. I just figured that the disks would have the best chance to be read once I get a new desktop.

(I also saw the mention of floppies in the discussion. I have an old Win98 machine - for gaming only these days - with an internal floppy and zip drives. Those media easily outlast CD's: I can still read almost all oc them, even though some are over 30 years old.)

Man, I would pay CASH for a computer with an internal floppy drive!

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[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

I haven't burned a dvdr in years, maybe more than a decade. Last time was a linux installation disk, I'm not sure if it was because I was having troubles creating a bootable usb for that distro, or a PC that for some reason was refusing to boot from a usb, but I was glad of having still some blank disks lying around.

Edit: I've had to go check, I still have a bunch, most of them are rewritable, lol

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[–] sudoMakeUser@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Those look good, they are gamingfavoriten!

[–] daggermoon@piefed.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I use them to burn DVD's that I can play on my PS5. I rip discs more than I burn them but sometimes I'll make a copy of a rare disc or an .iso I found online.

[–] emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

What's your latest rare find that you made a copy of? :D

[–] daggermoon@piefed.world 2 points 6 days ago

Some obscure South African CD's that no one outside SA knows about. I have a strange fascination with South African rock music.

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