[mysterydip]

Semi-related, there's a piece of hardware being made (some parts 3D printed even) called GDEmu that replaces the optical drive components with an SD card reader, allowing people to play (backups of legally owned games) on their original hardware without wearing out the drive mechanism.

[SmellyGeekBoy]

In my case I got fed up of replacing drive mechanisms after about the third one so I invested in one of these. It has the side benefits of much faster loading times and a much quieter console all round, too.

I won't deny that there is also a piracy aspect to it - I have a fairly large collection of boxed original Dreamcast games but there are a few on my GDEmu that couldn't be classed as "backups". The unreleased Half-Life beta is well worth checking out, for example.