On 1/12/2017 9:34 AM, Nil wrote:
I guess I'm behind the times, because I never even consided the
possibility: there are no front-accessible bays to accommodate an
optical disc reader/writer, which I require. I was looking for a case
that was very insulated and quiet and this looked like a good choice,
so now I'm very surprised and disappointed. I have to decide whether to
return it (probably on my dime) or keep it. So...

Buy some quiet fans from Noctua, whether you are using liquid cooler or
not. They are expensive though.

- I guess I'd be willing to spring for an external USB drive *IF*...
[a] they burn reliable (I guess I still remember the days when the
computer/OS could barely keep up with a burn and you'd get frequent
crap-outs during a write operation). and [b] are the drives within the
caddys replaceable? In my experience, optical (CD/DVD) burners have a
short lifespan and must be replaced every few years. But internal
drives are cheap, so it was no big deal - I consider them to be
consumable items. So, if I can replace the drives in the USB caddys for
$10 - $15, that's acceptible. If I have to replace the whole caddy for
$20 - $40, that's not so acceptible.

Internal Blu-ray combo drives are always cheaper. And these days
terabytes hard disks and large capacity SD cards are cheap. So don't
bother using CD/DVD/Blu-Ray for backup.

You might spend some money on a SSD as system drive for fast booting.

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