CD / DVD Rom Information

Optical drives are pretty much a standard part of computer systems these days - they've come a long way from the luxury they were in the mid 90s. The years have also brought new optical technologies beyond just the simple CD, so here is some info on the basic terminology involved in selecting one of these drives:

CD (Compact Disc) - This is the oldest optical format our drives support. It's still the standard for music and small data storage (up to 600-700MB). Every optical drive out there can at the very least read this format.

DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) - This is a format that can store a lot more information than CD, and can support two layers for even more data. It was popularized by movies, as a digital replacement for VHS tapes, but has also caught on as a good format for storing backups and large amounts of data (4GB+ per layer, over 8GB on a dual-layer disc).

Blu-Ray - This is the latest optical format to gain widespread use, and it's most commonly used for high-definition movies. Like DVD it can support multiple layers, with up to 25GB of storage per layer. Blu-ray discs can be used for normal data as well as movies, but the cost of recordable discs is still relatively high compared to CD or DVD.

ROM (Read Only Memory) - This is a term applied to optical drives which can only read discs and cannot write to them. The most basic drives will be labeled as such, or alternatively as a "reader"-type drive (though a reader of one format may still be able to write to others).

RW (Read / Write) - This is the term for drives that can both read and write a given format (or formats), and in more recent times the phrase "burner" has come to have the same meaning.