DVD Burner Question

[Subba Rao]

Hello,

I am planning to buy an external DVD burner for my computer. Some of my
disk partitions are 7 GB and are about 60% to 80% full. Now I want to
burn the drive contents to a DVD.

There seems to be lot of DVD burning technologies. Most of them say
"dual sided". Do this mean that both sides of the DVD disc will be used
for the data? If yes, what would be the capacity?

How will a disk drive be mapped on to both sides of the drive?

How long will a burned data DVD last?

Last but least which DVD burners are recommended and which ones should I
avoid?

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[Tom Lake]

Hello,

I am planning to buy an external DVD burner for my computer. Some of my
disk partitions are 7 GB and are about 60% to 80% full. Now I want to
burn the drive contents to a DVD.

There seems to be lot of DVD burning technologies. Most of them say
"dual sided". Do this mean that both sides of the DVD disc will be used
for the data? If yes, what would be the capacity?

There are quite a few formats. Here's a good site to help sort out the
various options:

http://www.snarfo.com/dvdcapacity.htm

Tom Lake

 

[Rod Speed]

I am planning to buy an external DVD burner for my computer.
Some of my disk partitions are 7 GB and are about 60% to
80% full. Now I want to burn the drive contents to a DVD.

There seems to be lot of DVD burning technologies.
Most of them say "dual sided".

They actually say dual and that is short for dual layer.

There are dual sided blanks, but they arent very common at all.

Do this mean that both sides of the DVD disc will be used for the data?

No, but it does mean that both layers can be used for data.

BUT dual layer blanks are quite expensive currently.

If yes, what would be the capacity?

About 9GB.

How will a disk drive be mapped on to both sides of the drive?

That happens auto with dual layer blanks.

How long will a burned data DVD last?

How long is a piece of string ? Depends on the media, the burner,
how you store them, etc etc etc. The only thing that makes any
sense with any backup media is to write it more than once on
more than one brand of media and read it ocassionally so you
notice when one has gone bad.

Last but least which DVD burners are recommended

I like the Pioneer 109 myself.

and which ones should I avoid?

I have seen reports of problem with some Sonys.

 

[Lil' Dave]

Hello,

I am planning to buy an external DVD burner for my computer. Some of my
disk partitions are 7 GB and are about 60% to 80% full. Now I want to
burn the drive contents to a DVD.

There seems to be lot of DVD burning technologies. Most of them say
"dual sided". Do this mean that both sides of the DVD disc will be used
for the data? If yes, what would be the capacity?

How will a disk drive be mapped on to both sides of the drive?

Dual-sided single layer (DVD-10) recordable DVD media is comparatively
expensive TO 2 single-sided single layer (DVD-5) DVD media.

Adobe makes software for copying to double-sided media. You have to turn
the DVD media over when prompted. You can just as easily figure the data
capacity per side, and what you're going to put on each side to fill that
capacity. You want to burn in ISO format with burning software, if you're
archiving. If you save data to DVD on regular basis with overwriting older
files, you should use a DVD-RAM burner. DVD+R format allows
rewrites/overwrites on DVDRW media, but, your media won't last.

Dual-layer DVD media is a smarter buy, with almost double capacity of a
standard snngle layer DVD media. Dual format DVD(+/-) is good for
compatibility for other machines, stand-alone DVD for reading purposes.

How long will a burned data DVD last?

That's up to how you handle the media. It may last your lifetime. Double
sided media is difficult to handle without smudging.

Last but least which DVD burners are recommended and which ones should I
avoid?

Won't recommend specific products. I do recommend you stick with middle of
the road cost products with good tech support. DVD media has its ups/downs
for usability, and can cause problems on many burners, even famous brands.
This is both a function of the media, and the burner. Some burners can use
almost any media, regardless of the batch problem that may be related to the
media.

Personally, I don't like Iomega anything..