Optical Drive
Several types of optical drives using various media are currently available. They include Compact Disc (CD), Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc (DVD), or Blu-ray Disc (BR). One that can record DVDs is particularly useful if you need to record large amounts of data, since a DVD can store up to 8.54 GB of information on a dual layer DVD. All of the recordable DVD drives work about the same. Each computer company's drive can create DVDs that will play back on another company's DVD drive. However, older stand-alone DVD players may have difficulty playing DVD±R/RW media.
To help you shop for an optical drive for your computer, the table below summarizes the various drive types as well as the media that each can play back and record.
| Drive type | Can record | Can play back |
|---|---|---|
| CD-ROM | none | CD |
| CD-RW/DVD (Combo drive) |
CD-R CD-RW |
CD DVD |
| DVD-R/RW | CD-R CD-RW DVD-R DVD-RW |
all common removable optical media except Blue Ray |
| DVD+R/RW | CD-R CD-RW DVD+R DVD+RW |
all common removable optical media except Blue Ray |
| DVD±R/RW (SuperDrive on Mac) |
CD-R CD-RW DVD+R DVD+RW DVD-R DVD-RW |
all common removable optical media except Blue Ray |
| Blue Ray disc combo (BR) |
CD-R CD-RW DVD+R DVD+RW DVD-R DVD-RW |
all removable optical media |
| Blue Ray disc recorder combo (BR) |
CD-R CD-RW DVD+R DVD+RW DVD-R DVD-RW BD-R BD-RE |
all removable optical media |
Orig. Posted: Tue, 03/10/2009 - 09:21 — dlschmid.ncsu.edu Last Modified: Wed, 07/15/2009 - 07:07