What are the Optical disk drives
Optical disc drive is a drive that
uses laser light or electromagnetic waves for reading and writing
data to or from optical disc.
Optical media types include:
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Compact discs (CD)
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DVD
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Blu-Ray discs,
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Universal media discs,
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High-Definition Versatile Discs
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and so on. See: http://blankcomputermedia.com
Most internal drives for personal computers, servers and workstations are designed for a standard 5.25" drive bay and connect to their host via ATA and SATA interface.
CD-ROM drives. CD-ROM is an
acronym for Compact Disk Read-Only Memory. CD-ROMs are used to store
applications or data in such forms as video, sound and animation. CD-ROM
drives can only read information from compact disks (CD).
CD-R and CD-RW drives (burners).
With CD-ROM drives you can play CD-ROMs on your computer, CD-R drives
allow you to create your CD-ROMs. CD-R is short for "CD-Recordable". Recordable
CDs are called also as WORM (Write Once, Read Multiple) media that work
just like standard CD-ROMs. The main disadvantage of CD-R drives is that you
can't rewrite CD-ROM. CD-RW (Rewritable) drives allows you to write discs, then
erase and rewrite. They are also called CD-E (compact disk-erasable).
CD-Rewritable drives are able to write both CD-R and CD-RW discs. Media
for CD-R and CD-RW drives are blank CD-R or CD-RW.
Digital video
(versatile ) disk (DVD) drives realize the next generation of optical
disc storage technology. DVD is essentially a bigger, faster CD that can
hold cinema-like video, better-than-CD audio, and computer data. DVD aims
to encompass home entertainment, computers, and business information with a
single digital format, eventually replacing audio CD, videotape, laserdisc,
CD-ROM, and video game cartridges. You can meet six recordable versions of
DVD-ROM: DVD-R for General, DVD-R for Authoring, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD+RW,
and DVD+R. All DVD recorders can read DVD-ROM discs, but each uses a
different type of disc for recording. DVD-R and DVD+R can record data once
(sequentially only), like CD-R, while DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW can be
rewritten thousands of times, like CD-RW. DVD-RAM is more of a removable
storage device for computers than a video recording format. The other two
erasable format families (DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW) are essentially in
competition with each other. The market will determine which of them
succeeds or if they end up coexisting or merging.
Blue-ray (blue ray disc) is name of a next-generation optical disc
format that has more than five times the storage capacity of
traditional DVD and can hold up to 25 GB on a single-layer
disc and 50 GB on a dual layer disc.. This format was
developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback
of high-definition video, as well as storing large amount of
data. A Blu-ray Disc is a very economical storage
medium, offering the lowest cost per GB. What's more: a Blu-ray
Disc drive in a PC is also likely to allow reading from and
recording to CD and DVD media, making Blu-ray Disc the ideal
upgrade. The world's largest computer companies,
including Apple, HP and Dell, have adopted the Blu-ray Disc
format, offering it as a line-fitted option in their
top-of-the-line models. As line-fitted drives in PCs
currently make up for about 75% of DVD drives sold, such a
widespread adoption in the IT industry will boost acceptance
of the Blu-ray Disc format. Recently Pioneer has revealed that they developed
a Blu-ray disc that can store 400GB of data on 16 layers.
By functionality optical drives include:
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players,
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recorders or burners,
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dublicators.
