Most optical drives today are combo CD/DVD drives that support DVDs and all the CD formats: CD audio, CD-ROM, CD-R and CD-RW. The speeds of the drives are rated by their CD-ROM and DVD transfer rates.

A mildly annoying trend over recent years has been for USB hardware devices to expose a CD-ROM drive containing their drivers for Windows users. Of course there’s no real CD in there ...

Modern CD-ROM drives also play audio CDs. See CD-ROM and CD-ROM drives. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction requires permission.

The CD was the first kind of optical disc ... Here are some ways to work around not having an optical drive in your computer: ...