Introduction
This article explains all of the terms and acronyms found in optical drive product descriptions which will help you to understand what features you need.
An optical drive can be defined as a storage device that reads data from and writes data to optical discs. Here I would like to make the term ‘optical’ clearer to you. If we talk non-technically, the word optical means vision or ability to spot objects. In the computer world, the word optical refers to lasers and an optical drive uses laser light, an electromagnetic wave that reads data from and writes data to optical discs. Optical discs are made of millions of small dips (humps) wherein data is stored. Optical disc types include CD (Compact Disc), DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) and BD (Blu-ray Disc). Some optical drives can only read from discs, but most PCs, have drives that can both read and write. The drives which can only read data are called readers and those drives which can write data are called writer or recorder burners. There are different types of CD and DVD drives available, including CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD±RW, DVD±RW/DVD+R DL, BD-ROM, BD-R and BD-RE. All these drives have different specifications and different capabilities for reading and writing data to different optical media types.
Types of CD & DVD Optical Storage Media
So, you’re standing in the stationary store or supermarket and staring at all the optical discs. What do you get? CD-RW, DVD-R, just a plain DVD? What will my optical drive support? There are a lot of different disc types. Here’s what it all means...
CD (Compact Disc)
A Compact Disc can be defined as an optical disc having a diameter of 120 mm that can store digital data. Compact Discs were originally developed for storing digital audio. Mini Compact Discs are also available which have diameter of 60 to 80 mm and can store up to 24 minutes of audio.
CD-R
A CD-R (Compact Disc-Recordable) is a type of Compact Disc which can be used for writing data onto it. CD-R can store a large amount of data compared to their predecessor floppy diskettes. CD-R was invented by Philips and Sony in 1988.
CD-RW
A CD-RW (Compact Disc ReWritable) is a rewritable optical disc, introduced in 1997. This optical media has the capability for data to be written and erased roughly 1000 times.
DVD
DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) is another optical disc storage media type like a CD but it has more storage capacity compared with Compact Discs. There are different types of DVDs available, with storage capacities ranging 1.46GB to 17.08GB.
DVD-R
DVD-R (DVD Recordable) can be used for writing data. A DVD-R optical storage media usually has a storage capacity of 4.7GB. The DVD-R format was developed by Pioneer in 1997.
DVD-RW
DVD-RW (DVD-ReWritable) is a rewritable DVD disc which, like a CD-RW has the capability of being rewritten several times.
DVD+R
DVD+R is a once-writable optical disc which has a storage capacity of 4.7GB. The storage of capacity of DVD+R is slightly less than DVD-R. The format of DVD+R was developed by an alliance of corporations, in 2002.
DVD+RW
DVD+RW (DVD+ReWritable) is the name of a standard for optical discs which can hold 4.7GB of data. DVD+RW supports random write access which allows this media to add and remove data without erasing the entire disc where as a DVD-RW disc must be erased before re-writing any data.
DVD+R DL
DVD+R DL (DVD Recordable Dual Layer) also known as DVD+R9 is a dual layered disc which can hold data up to 8.55GB (4.7GB on each layer). DVD+R DL discs can be read in many DVD drives but can only be created using DVD+R DL and Super Multi Drives.
DVD+RW DL
DVD+RW DL (DVD ReWritable Dual Layer) is nothing but a double layer rewritable version of a DVD+RDL.
BD
BD (Blu-ray Disc) is an another type of optical disc storage media format which is mainly used for high-definition video and data storage, having the same dimensions as of a standard DVD or CD. The Blu-ray discs are read and written by a blue laser light. Of course, you need a different kind of drive to read and write data with them. At 8cm, Blu-ray disc can store 7.8GB of data (Single Layer) where as a Dual layer disc can store 15.6GB of data. On the other hand, a 12cm single layer Blu-ray disc can store 25GB of data where as a 12cm dual layer Blu-ray disc can store 50GB of data, almost six times the capacity of a dual layer DVD.
BD-R and BD-RE
BD-R (Blu-ray Disc Recordable) is an optical disc which can be recorded using a Blu-ray optical disc recorder. The BD-R single layer discs have a storage capacity of 25GB where as dual layer BD-Rs have a storage capacity of 50GB. BD-R discs can be written only once where as BD-RE (Blu-ray Disc-RErecordable) can be erased and re-recorded multiple times.