Drives
The hundreds or thousands of megabytes on your CDs and DVDs would do you no good without a means for reading them. That means is the optical disc drive. A CD drive or CD-ROM reader gives you access only to CDs, be they audio or data discs. All DVD drives can read both CD and DVD discs, although early drives often cannot read discs written with CD-R and CD-RW drives.
With the price difference between CD and DVD drives disappearing, there's less reason than ever to consider a CD drive. A DVD drive will do everything the CD drive does (but likely better). Performance and compatibility are no longer issues. Consequently, in any new computer, a DVD drive is the preferred option.
All optical disc drives in computers can play back audio CDs. ...
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