Disc question from know nothing

[joestuff]

My pc has a cd rom & dvd rw drive. Can I back up my files ( which I think are all data ) to a dvd rw disc ?

[agomes]

Taking into consideration that your CD-Rom only reads CDs and you DVD-RW drive can write DVDs, I don't see why you couldn't.
Take care about RWs - the software you use and the discs. Sometimes one gets bad surprises.

[joestuff]

Thanks for the reply. I'm confused about something else you would maybe help me with; I read somewhere that I could write more data to a dvd disc vs a cd ( something about more room on the dvd disc ). Is that correct???

[adict2jane]

you becha-

80 min/700 MB cd = 703 MB

DVD-R = 4489 MB
DVD+R = 4483 MB

So Blank dvd's will hold about ~ 6.4 times as much data.

[joestuff]

Thanks. That confirms what I read. Also, poses the question; why would anyone buy cd's for burning whatever????

[adict2jane]

Reasons:
1) Cheaper
2) Burning Audio cd's
3) In general cheap cds burn better than cheap dvd's (which can be truly awful)
4) Compatiblity is better (cd-roms and some old dvd-roms)
5) If one only has to back up <=700 MB of data, why use a blank dvd?
6) Many people have cd-rw drives which cannot burn dvd's

[joestuff]

Note taken. Thanks for all the info.

[chef]

It's truly burner dependant. I would not use CD media these days anymore, because of the data"masses".

But that's only my opinion.