Two Largest Manufacturers Of Optical Drives To Quit Making CD-ROM And CD-RW Drives

HLDS (Hitachi-LG Data Storage) and TSST (Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology) are soon to cease manufacturing of both CD-ROM and CD-RW drives. Not too big of a surprise since the last time I went shopping for computer parts I could have gotten one of each for less that $40.

Basically what it comes down to is the fact that all the new DVD burners are so close to the price of a new CD burner, and do the same thing and more, that they aren't selling very many, roughly 5% of their shipments right now, and they expect it to be less by the end of the year. So if you were a big fan of those optical drives, my condolences go out to you.

Really I don't think I can come up with a use where I would choose a CD-ROM or CD-RW over their DVD counterparts. The only case I see is for those towers of CD-RW drives that they use to make a ton of copies of a disc, maybe for that, but that's it.

HLDS and TSST to quit making CD-ROM drives, CD-RW burners in early 2008, says paper [via digitimes]