Custom Desktop System Optical Drive Hardware Guide

Custom Desktop System Optical Drive Hardware Guide

There are many different optical drives on the market with minor differences with what media that they can use or not use and special features which can be useful if used correctly.

Terms and Technology

Types of Optical Disks

Compact Disk (CD)

Year Introduced:    1982

Capacity:              650 MB or 700 MB

Media Types:        CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW

 

A Compact Disc (or CD) is an optical disc used to store digital data, originally developed for storing digital audio. The CD, available on the market since late 1982, remains the standard playback medium for commercial audio recordings and digital data to the present day.

 

CD-ROM:

CD-ROM (an abbreviation of "Compact Disc read-only memory") is a Compact Disc that contains data accessible by a computer. While the Compact Disc format was originally designed for music storage and playback, the format was later adapted to hold any form of binary data. CD-ROMs are popularly used to distribute computer software, including games and multimedia applications, though any data can be stored (up to the capacity limit of a disc).

 

CD-R:

A CD-R (Compact Disc-Recordable) is a variation of the CD-ROM. CD-R is a Write Once Read Many (WORM) optical medium (though the whole disk does not have to be entirely written in the same session) and retains a high level of compatibility with standard CD readers (unlike CD-RW which can be rewritten but has much lower compatibility and the discs are considerably more expensive).

 

CD-RW:

Compact Disc ReWritable (CD-RW) is a rewritable optical disc format.  While a prerecorded compact disc has its information permanently written onto its polycarbonate surface, a CD-RW disc contains a phase-change alloy recording layer composed of a phase change material, most often AgInSbTe, an alloy of silver, indium, antimony and tellurium.

Digital Video Disk (DVD)

Year Introduced:    1995

Capacity:              4.7 GB or 8.54 GB DL

Media Types:        DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM

 

DVD (also known as "Digital Versatile Disc" or "Digital Video Disc") is a popular optical disc storage media format. Its main uses are video and data storage. Most DVDs are of the same dimensions as compact discs (CDs) but store more than six times as much data.  The wavelength used by standard DVD lasers is 650 nm, and thus has a red color.

 

DVD-ROM:

DVD-ROM has data which can only be read and not written.  This type of disk can only be access by a computer system.

 

DVD-R:

DVD-R is a DVD recordable format. A DVD-R typically has a storage capacity of 4.71 GB (or 4.39 GiB), although the capacity of the original standard developed by Pioneer was 3.95 GB (3.68 GiB). Both values are larger than the storage capacity of its optical predecessor, the 700 MB CD-R.

 

DVD+R:

A DVD+R is a once-writable optical disc with 4.7 GB (4.377 GiB) of storage capacity. It has slightly less storage capacity than the DVD-R (4.382 GiB). The format was developed by a coalition of corporations, known as the DVD+RW Alliance, in mid 2002. Since the DVD+R format is a competing format to the DVD-R format, which is developed by the DVD Forum, it had not been approved by the DVD Forum, which claimed that the DVD+R format was not an official DVD format until Jan 25, 2008.

 

DVD-RW:

A DVD-RW disc is a rewritable optical disc with equal storage capacity to a DVD-R, typically 4.7 GB. The format was developed by Pioneer in November 1999 and has been approved by the DVD Forum. Unlike DVD-RAM, it is playable in about 75% of conventional DVD players. The primary advantage of DVD-RW over DVD-R is the ability to erase and rewrite to a DVD-RW disc. According to Pioneer, DVD-RW discs may be written to about 1,000 times before needing replacement, making them comparable with the CD-RW standard. DVD-RW discs are commonly used for volatile data, such as backups or collections of files. They are also increasingly used for home DVD video recorders. One benefit to using a rewritable disc is if there are writing errors when recording data, the disc is not ruined and can still store data by erasing the faulty data.

 

DVD+RW:

DVD+RW supports random write access, which means that data can be added and removed without erasing the whole disc and starting over (up to about 1000 times). With suitable support from the operating system, DVD+RW media can thus be treated like a large floppy disk, in contrast to DVD-RW which must be erased before re-writing can take place.

 

DVD-RAM:

DVD-RAM (DVD–Random Access Memory) is a disc specification presented in 1996 by the DVD Forum, which specifies rewritable DVD-RAM media and the appropriate DVD writers. DVD-RAM media have been used in computers as well as camcorders and personal video recorders since 1998. Currently there are three competing technologies for rewritable DVDs: DVD-RAM, DVD+RW and DVD-RW. DVD-RAM is considered a highly reliable format, as the discs have built-in error control and a defect management system. Therefore, DVD-RAM is perceived to be better than the other DVD technologies for traditional computer usage tasks such as general data storage, backup and archival, though the Mt. Rainier standard for DVD+RW somewhat lessens the DVD-RAM format's perceived advantage. Curiously, DVD-RAM has a larger presence in camcorders and set-top boxes than in computers, although the DVD-RAM's popularity in these devices can be explained by the fact that it is very easily written to and erased, which for example allows extensive in-camera editing. The on-disc structure of DVD-RAMs is closely related to hard disk and floppy disk technology, as it stores data in concentric tracks. DVD-RAMs can be accessed just like a hard or floppy disk and usually without any special software. DVD-RWs and DVD+RWs, on the other hand, store data in one long spiral track and require special packet reading/writing software to read and write data discs. Can be rewritten over 100,000 times (DVD±RW can be rewritten approx. 1,000 times). Faster DVD-RAMs support fewer rewrites (3x speed: 100,000, 5x speed: 10,000), but still more than DVD+RW or DVD-RW. Reliable writing of discs. Verification done in hardware by the drive, so post-write verification by software is unnecessary. Can be accessed directly by the OS and be read and written to it like a floppy drive. DVD-RAM writing will be slower than DVD+RW and DVD-RW until 12x DVD-RAM media becomes available. No dual layer disks available. Older versions used a protective cartridge to protect the frail plastic.

Differences Between The + and - Formats

The DVD+R format is divergent from the DVD-R format. Hybrid drives that can handle both, often labeled "DVD±RW", are very popular since there is not a single standard for recordable DVDs. There are a number of significant technical differences between the "minus" and the "plus" format, though most users would not notice the difference. One example is the DVD+R style ADIP (ADdress In Pregroove) system of tracking and speed control being less susceptible to interference and error than the LPP (Land Pre Pit) system used by DVD-R, which makes the ADIP system more accurate at higher speeds. In addition, DVD+R(W) has a more robust error management system than DVD-R(W), allowing for more accurate burning to media independent of the quality of the media. Additional session linking methods are more accurate with DVD+R(W) versus DVD-R(W), resulting in fewer damaged or unusable discs due to buffer under-run and multi-session disks with fewer PI/PO errors.

Like other "plus" media, it is possible to change the book type to increase the compatibility of DVD+R media.

As of 2007, the market for recordable DVD technology shows little sign of settling down in favor of either the "dash" or "plus" formats, which is mostly the result of the increasing numbers of dual-format devices that can record to both formats; it has become very difficult to find new devices that can only record to one of the formats. However, because the DVD-R format has been in use since 1997, it has had a five-year lead on DVD+R. As such, older or cheaper DVD players (up to 2004 vintage) are more likely to favor the DVD-R standard exclusively, and when creating DVDs for distribution (where the playing unit is unknown or older) the DVD-R format would normally be preferable.

Blu-Ray Disk (BD)

Year Introduced:    2006

Capacity:              25 GB or 50 GB DL

Media Types:        BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE

Blu-ray Disc (also known as Blu-ray or BD) is an optical disc storage media format. Its main uses are high-definition video and data storage. The disc has the same dimensions as a standard DVD or CD.

The name Blu-ray Disc is derived from the blue laser used to read and write this type of disc. Because of its shorter wavelength (405 nm), substantially more data can be stored on a Blu-ray Disc than on the DVD format, which uses a red (650 nm) laser. A dual layer Blu-ray Disc can store 50 GB, almost six times the capacity of a dual layer DVD.

 

BD-ROM:

BD-ROM disks are the data disks used to hold data in Blu-Ray format.  Currently, no software publisher has used this format for any types of software titles.

 

BD-R:

BD-R discs can be written to once and read multiple times.

 

BD-RE:

BD-RE can be erased and re-recorded multiple times.

 

Recording Speeds

All the different optical drives are rated on how fast they can write or read data in terms of multiplies of some non-standard transfer rate.  The 1x transfer rate usually describes what the first ever produced drive was capable of transferring while the 2x drive could transfer at double the rate and so on.

A CD-Recorder listed at 48x40 has a CD-R recording speed of 48X, and reads recorded media at 40X. This drive will work best with CD-R media rated at 48X.

A CD-ReWriter listed at 48x12x40 has a CD-R recording speed of 48X, a CD-RW write and rewrite speed of 12X, and reads recorded media at 40X. This drive will work best with CD-R media rated at 48X and CD-RW media rated at 12X or less.

Overall Compatibility