How Reliable are DVDs

[cthomas]

I have read two or three articles that said you should not use DVDs to backup your data to but only use CDs. These articles went on to say that CDs where designed to backup data. And DVDs where only designed to record movies on and where not reliable for data backup.

Is this right? I hope not I got my DVD so I could backup my data to it.

Carl

[garryheather]

Wrong !



The original specification was for a Digital VIDEO Disc, but then they realised they were missing out on the market and made the spec for Digital Versatile Disc - Video instead, leaving it open for additional purposes.

The error correction on a DVD is roughly 10 times better than that on a CD, even allowing for the tighter packing of the data. There should be no problems in putting data on a DVD, except that the market penetration isn't as great as CD's are, and are thus not as mainstream - not all machines have a DVD-ROM drive yet, and of those that do, some don't like recordables all that well.

[Vejita-sama]

See above Basically backing up PC data to DVD makes more sense than backing up to CD given the size of the average PC project these days. And while it's true that there are a few PCs out there without DVD-ROM drives they are pretty much std on all new machines, and most people do seem to have them. IF you're backing up for home use than you're covered anyway right...