Backing Up Your Hard Drive Data To DVD

DVDs (Digital Versatile Disks) offer large storage capacities at a very low cost. This makes them perfect for backing up your computer or hard drive data to. DVDs provide the average computer user with lots of storage space that's reliable and durable.The CDRW drives had only just established itself on the computer market as the format of choice for computer users.. at least it did until DVD burst onto the scene. DVD stands for Digital Versatile Disk or Digital Video Disk depending on who you're speaking to.

The introduction of DVD as a form of data storage completely blew away the rival CDR and Zip or Jaz drives. Suddenly instead of being limited to a pitiful 700MB of data storage you could suddenly store up to 9.4GB of data on a single DVD disc. No other storage medium could offer the same capacity at the low cost of DVD discs. Computer backup on DVD quickly became the method of choice for computer users all over the world.

One of the main issues many people had with buying a DVD burner was format. In the not too distant past certain DVD writers were capable of only supporting certain types of DVD media. This made it very confusing to buy a DVDR drive to suddenly find that it would only read or write to one speficic type of DVD disc.

Currently there are 5 separate formats or types of disc a DVD Burner can use:

DVD-R - this type of disk can be written to or burned onto only once and provides 4.7GB of data storage.

DVD+R - this type of disk can be written to or burned onto only once and provides 4.7GB of data storage.

DVD-RW - this type of disk can written to thousands of times and provides 4.7GB of data storage.

DVD+RW - this type of disk can written to thousands of times and provides 4.7GB of data storage.

DVD-RAM - this type of disk can written to thousands of times and provides up to 9.4GB of data storage. DVD-RAM is the least compatible form of DVD disk.

This might seem very confusing but it's not really because the the newer DVD burners are multiformat i.e. they're DVD-/+R and DVD-/+RW drives by default. This is what you should be looking for on the box/online description before you buy. Never buy a drive that's not multiformat.

When purchasing a DVD burner aim for brand names. Look for a brand you recognize. Check with friends and see which models they're using and how they feel about them.

DVD burners offer massive storage capacity coupled with being extremely easy to use. They're ideal for the small home office and learning how to backup a hard drive to DVD isn't rocket science with a good piece of backup software like Winbackup.