DVD: It's Not Just for Movies

What is a computer user's worst nightmare? Data loss. But how do you prevent data loss? By backing up your files you can avoid the issue of possibly losing years of research or that important document that you have been working on for months. Most computers are shipped with CDRW drives that allow a user to back up 700 Megabytes of information on one disk. This is a great solution for the home user with a few files to back up, but what about an entire system? It would take several CDs of information to capture a standard PC configuration. Wouldn't it be great to have a complete disk image of your hard drive?

With the introduction of the DVD, this is becoming a reality. Yes, DVDs are associated with movies, but did you know that you can write data to a DVD? You can store 4.7 Gigabytes of information to a single DVD, and that on only one side. A standard PC from the factory has on average of 3 Gigabytes of information, which will easily fit on one DVD. The price of DVD recorder drives are slowly dropping and becoming affordable by the typical user. The days of waiting for technical support to recover your data and rebuild your system (leaving you without a computer for days at a time) is coming to an end. Data loss? Nah, just drop your DVD into the drive and refresh your entire system.

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