PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Choosing a Writable DVD Drive

You take a risk no matter which of the three competing technologies you choose. Whichever you buy, there’s a chance it will be orphaned if the market chooses one of the others. So which of these drives should you buy?

• If you need reliable, high-capacity optical storage for data, get a DVD-RAM drive. A DVD-RAM drive is slower than the alternatives and won’t write CD-R or CD-RW, but has very reliable error correction. DVD-RAM is suitable if the drive and the data it stores will be used on one computer, or if you need to transfer large amounts of data between computers that all have DVD-RAM drives. Other than performance and higher media cost, the chief drawback of DVD-RAM is that DVD-RAM discs are incompatible with many DVD-ROM drives and DVD players. In short, DVD-RAM is the most reliable of the competing formats for storing large amounts of data, but is the best choice only if high write speeds are unimportant and you will never need to read the DVD-RAM discs in a system without a DVD-RAM drive.

• If you need a general-purpose DVD writer, get a DVD+R/RW drive or a hybrid DVD+/-RW drive. These drives can write any DVD blank except a DVD-RAM disc, and most can write CD-R and CD-RW discs as well. DVD+/-RW drives offer the best combination of flexibility and reliability for most users. They produce discs that are readable by most DVD-ROM drives and DVD players, and write discs as fast or faster than competing single-standard drives. They are ideal for writing ...