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Optical Disk

Vangie Beal
Vangie Beal
Updated on:

A storage medium from which data is read and to which it is written by lasers. Optical disks can store much more data — up to 6 gigabytes (6 billion bytes) — than most portable magnetic media, such as floppies. There are three basic types of optical disks:

  • CD-ROM :Like audio CDs, CD-ROMs come with data already encoded onto them. The data is permanent and can be read any number of times, but CD-ROMs cannot be modified.
  • WORM : Stands for write-once, read -many. With a WORM disk drive, you can writedata onto a WORM disk, but only once. After that, the WORM disk behaves just like a CD-ROM.
  • erasable: Optical disks that can be erased and loaded with new data, just like magnetic disks. These are often referred to as EO (erasable optical) disks.
    •

    These three technologies are not compatible with one another; each requires a different type of disk drive and disk. Even within one category, there are many competing formats, although CD-ROMs are relatively standardized.

    Vangie Beal
    Vangie Beal
    Vangie Beal is a freelance business and technology writer covering Internet technologies and online business since the late '90s.
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