What exactly is a DVD-RAM drive....?

[Panchu]

I recently purchased a Sony DVD-RAM drive for my Desktop computer.I was trying to figure out what is difference between a DVD R/W drive and DVD-RAM drive but could find no results.Is it a new technology for data storage and is it volatile as the name suggests.....?If anybody has any information please help.

[Killen]

The answer is simple DVD-RAM is a new physical disk data storage format relying on portable shiny disks for the storage.Of all the DVD media's DVD-RAM is the best suited for data backups because it quick access to information stored on disk.In simple words the Operating system addresses the DVD-RAM disk as a 4.7 gb hard drive for storing data without all the potential for failure if the disk is dropped accidentally.

[RoninBlade]

The best description for a DVD-RAM is a removable storage device rather than a recordable DVD (like DVD+R).DVD-RAM disk can be thought of as a portable hard drive at the size of smaller portable disks.The disks were first released in 1998 with a 2.5GB capacity which was more than enough for a portable media at that time then in 1999 capacity increased to 4.7GB which was same as a capacity of a single layer DVD.

[Rawko]

DVD-RAM disks are a new generation portable media.They basically come in two types. 1 is a cartridge protected variety which similar to the old Zip disks with the disk protected inside a plastic sleeve or other come as a simple DVD.If you have an optical drive with support for DVD-RAM and if you have windows Xp then windows can access this disk as a portable hard drive as if it is formatted with FAT32 filesystem.Earlier versions of windows needs a software to act as a mediator so that the windows can use the DVD-RAM disk as a portable HDD.