EVGA Forgoes Driver DVDs: It’s All About The USB Flash Drive
by Joe Shields on May 18, 2018 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- EVGA
- Drivers
- USB
Driver disks of some sort have been part of a PC enthusiast's life as far back as I can remember. Before Windows included drivers, they all came from media included with the motherboard. I first recall them on floppies then once optical media took hold, moved to CDs. As the number of drivers and included software increased in both quantity and size, it outgrew the capacity of CDs and board partners moved to DVDs offering more capacity and faster read speeds. For example, a board partner's driver disk from a Z370 based board weighs in at 6.57GB on the disk, far eclipsing the capacity of a CD (~700MB) and that of a single-sided DVD (4.7 GB).
To that end, yesterday on Twitter, EVGA’s Global Product Management Director Jacob Freeman announced that in the future, EVGA motherboards will not come with driver disks, but USB Flash which contains all the needed drivers and software. This includes H370 based boards now and others moving forward. Instead of a DVD we are used to seeing, EVGA will include a small 8GB USB flash drive with the EVGA logo printed on it instead. While this isn’t a first (a high-end Asus board in the past included one), it certainly is welcome, if only for the quick installation from USB versus CD/DVD installs. The drive is also re-writeable so it can be used for other purposes as well.
Overall, it is good to see EVGA embrace what we feel is the modern, and faster, medium for base driver and software installations, and hope other board partners follow suit. I do wonder a bit about the cost, but even if it adds $1 more, it is worth it (to me). No more whirring from the optical drive to install drivers with H370 and future EVGA motherboards. It’s about time!
Editor's Note: EVGA has confirmed the drive is USB 2.0 based and costs about twenty times more than an optical disk would. Thankfully, EVGA says that significant cost increase will not trickle down to the consumer, which we all appreciate.
I highly doubt that other manufactures will switch to USB drives anytime soon considering the cost is about 20x that of a DVD. Even for a small 8GB USB 2.0 one, but it’s about time someone sets the standard for 2018 🙂 https://t.co/5L1N4trO8q
— Jacob Freeman (@EVGA_JacobF) May 18, 2018
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Zinabas - Tuesday, May 22, 2018 - link
I'm not talking about bad drivers, I'm talking anything else they want to put on it that runs through the setup wizard when you first plug it in. you almost definitely won't have an antivirus, even if you do it won't be up to date because if you could use the internet the entire point of the driver cd is moot.zmeul - Friday, May 18, 2018 - link
fucking ATEAMSWITCHER - Friday, May 18, 2018 - link
Apple's Mac's can update everything ... including the firmware and OS ... over the internet. Changing the media type isn't really progress, compared to Apple. Will Microsoft ever fix this? Probably not.nismotigerwvu - Friday, May 18, 2018 - link
Comparing OSX and Windows on this front is completely apples to oranges (pun intended). Apple really only has a handful of possible hardware configurations to worry about and only from vendors they directly work with. On Windows you have a near infinite list of permutations, including companies that Microsoft has no official communication with. That and Windows has extensive legacy support, whereas Apple has been willing to draw lines in the sand.Reflex - Friday, May 18, 2018 - link
Microsoft branded devices can also do this. All Surface updates, for instance, occur over the internet including firmware, OS and drivers. Many third parties also provide similar methods for their own hardware. Some publish such updates on Windows Update, but its up to the vender.A5 - Friday, May 18, 2018 - link
The driver disk is only needed when you have to bootstrap basic functionality (like, say, the network driver) to get the OS installed if you DIY.Modern OEM systems keep a recovery partition on the hard drive for this purpose.
After that Windows Update can do everything besides your BIOS.
cmdrdredd - Friday, May 18, 2018 - link
Asus has had software that can do this for years.mapesdhs - Sunday, May 20, 2018 - link
Progress btw would be Apple not screwing its customers when they need to get something repaired.austinsguitar - Friday, May 18, 2018 - link
11/10 needs to start happening everywhere reallyHStewart - Friday, May 18, 2018 - link
I don't believe this is new - but it is rare - I remember some package had USB instead or disk. Most things could be gotten from Internet any way.