CD-RW ASAP

Storage: Taking Capacity Up, Up, and Away

If you need more space than the 650MB to 700MB a CD can hold, but you want the reliability of optical media, you may be ready for one of the higher-capacity technologies now available. DVD-RAM has been around for several years now, and faster, more-compatible solutions like Sony's double-density CD-R/RW and Pioneer's DVD-R/RW drives arrived on the scene earlier this year. Still to come are drives based on the long-promised DVD+RW standard and Calimetrics' exciting MultiLevel Recording technology.

Today the least expensive, most compatible route to greater optical capacity is our eighth-ranked drive, Sony's $190, 12X/8X/32X Double Density CRX200E/A1. This CD-RW drive writes to Sony's specially formulated 1.3GB CD-R and CD-RW media, which are priced at about $2 and $3 apiece, respectively.

The proprietary double-density discs are more expensive than the 50-cent CD-R and $1 CD-RW single-density media used by standard CD-RW drives, which the CRX200E/A1 can read and write to as well. But considering that each disc holds twice as much, the price is not unreasonable. As you'd expect with a new format, a double-density CD can be played back only on a double-density drive.

DVD-RAM may have enjoyed a three-year head start on the competition, but it hasn't made much of a splash in the optical storage pool--despite its enormous 4.7GB-per-side capacity. And it isn't going to catch on anytime soon: DVD-RAM's transfer rate is slow, about 700KBps or 4.5X with verification enabled, and the media is both costly (a 4.7GB disc costs $35 to $40) and incompatible with nearly all DVD-ROM drives and home DVD players. On the plus side, the media is rated for up to 100,000 rewrites, compared with the relatively modest 1000 rewrites promised by CD-RW and DVD-R/RW. DVD-RAM is a good choice only for people who plan to rewrite data repeatedly to a single disc and who don't need to share discs with others.

If cost isn't a concern for you, you'll love the speed, capacity, and flexibility of Pioneer's $800 DVD-R/RW drive, the DVR-AO3. Included in some systems from Compaq and Apple, this drive's $10, 4.7GB DVD-Recordable discs can store home movies or still images that are viewable in the vast majority of DVD-ROM drives and home DVD players. DVD-Rewritable discs cost around $20 and are great for backups, but they aren't as backward-compatible. The DVR-A03 writes to a 4.7GB DVD-R disc at a speedy 2.76 MBps, to a DVD-RW disc at 1.38 MBps, to CD-R at 8X, and to CD-RW at 4X. LaCie and QPS also offer DVD-R/RW drives.

After three years of tantalizing announcements, the DVD+RW drive technology from HP, Philips, and Sony is now promised for this fall, when HP is scheduled to release the first drive. DVD+RW uses a slightly different technological approach to carve out the same 4.7GB of rewritable storage that DVD-RW offers. Plus, its proponents claim that this format has even greater backward compatibility with home DVD players--though this remains to be seen. DVD+RW sounds promising, and Dell plans to offer systems with the new drive. But early adopters beware: It remains unclear which of the competing rewritable DVD standards will come out on top.

The technology that threatens to reshape the affordable optical storage market is Calimetrics' MultiLevel Recording. Not only does MultiLevel triple a standard CD's capacity to 2.1GB using readily available media technology, but it triples write speeds, too. MultiLevel works its magic by writing and reading marks made in eight color gradations instead of one, allowing the laser to read and write more information within the same space.

Even better, MultiLevel drives will be backward-compatible (both reading and writing) with current CD media, so your existing stockpile of CDs won't be rendered obsolete. Mitsubishi Chemical, Panasonic, Plextor, Sanyo, and TDK are all on board the MultiLevel bandwagon. Products are due out in the first quarter of 2002.