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Hardware components of the PC The Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) is the next generation of removable storage media. For the PC, it is referred to as DVD-ROM and is identical in physical appearance to CDs. The DVD drive is backward compatible with CDs because it can read both the CD and DVD medias. The DVD media can store information in various formats and capacities up to 17GB. All DVD drives will read both formats, although discs with more than 9GB of information are referred to as double-sided media and have data stored on both sides. Both CDs and DVDs offer an attractive option for storing large amounts of data on a single removable disk. This data can be large software programs such as operating systems, application suites or data backups. DVDs can store entire feature films featuring high quality sound and vision. Alongside the models of read-only compact disc are the compatible compact disc writers. These devices are discussed in Unit 5, Service and Support for PC Peripherals. |