Most optical drives today are combo CD/DVD drives that support DVDs and all the CD formats: CD audio, CD-ROM, CD-R and CD-RW. The speeds of the drives are rated by their CD-ROM and DVD transfer rates.

The speeds of the drives are rated by their DVD-ROM and CD-ROM transfer rates. The original DVD drive (1x) transferred data at 1.39MB per second, sufficient for movies. By doubling the spindle ...

But any new technology also brings the risk of ending up at the wrong side of a format war: just ask anyone who committed to HD-DVD fifteen ... of a pioneering CD-ROM drive, the accompanying ...