1.2.17

Types of Optical Disk

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Types of Optical Disk

Each of the three optical media standards can come in any of the following forms:

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Read-Only Memory (ROM)

  • A CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or BD-ROM is a disk which can be read only.
  • The manufacturer writes the initial data, and this cannot be changed.
  • This is often used in content distribution so that people cannot accidentally overwrite the content.
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Write-Once (R)

  • A CD-R, DVD-R, or BD-R is a disk which can be written once by the user at home.
  • Once the user has written data to the disk, they cannot overwrite it.
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Re-writable (RW)

  • A CD-RW, DVD-RW, or BD-RW is a disk which can be overwritten whenever the user would like to.
  • These are often used for backups which might need to be updated in the future.

Jump to other topics

1Computer Systems

1.1Systems Architecture

1.2Memory & Storage

1.3Computer Networks, Connections & Protocols

1.4Network Security

1.5Systems Software

1.6Ethical, Legal, Cultural & Environmental Concern

2Computational Thinking, Algorithms and Programming

2.1Algorithms

2.2Programming Fundamentals

2.3Producing Robust Programs

2.4Boolean Logic

2.5Programming Languages & IDEs

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