Originally Posted by
osamede
In theory, yes. In practice, user experience shows that not all USB optical drives can be relied on to do this correctly. Most hardcore ultraportable users would tell you that. And the moment of crisis is the worst possible time to be having to roll the dice.
In that case, I highly recommend users to run through some drills in system failure scenarios. With IT department's guidance if needed. Don't wait until crisis is upon you to pray for the data recovery procedure to work.
However, what is clear is that needing to mess with optical drives in the moment of truth - or having to look for one or carry one around is just not good enough for a mission-critical tool. That weakness has dogged optical driveless ultraportables for years. Doesnt change just because there is an Apple logo on the device.
While optical drives are the de-facto ways to deliver software to computers, it is not the only way. There are many ways to skin a cat.
In the last couple of years, the industry is moving toward utility/recovery partitions on the system drive. For instance, if there is some kind of OS error on your ThinkPad, push the blue ThinkVantage button to boot from the utility partition. You can choose to restore to an earlier backup or factory state. No optical drive needed. Well, not unless the system drive fails or the utility partition gets erased.
