What is an Optical Disc Drive?
Optical drives retrieve and/or store data on optical discs like C
Ds, DVDs, and BDs (Blu-ray discs).Some common types of optical drives include CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD?RW, and Blu-ray drives. CD and DVD writers, such as CD-R and DVD-R drives use a laser to both read and write data on the discs. The laser used for writing the data is much more powerful than the laser that reads the data, as it "burns" the bumps and dips into the disc. While optical drives can spin discs at very high speeds, they are still significantly slower than hard drives, which store data magnetically.
Optical Disc Drive Description:
An optical drive is about the size of a thick soft cover book. The front of
the drive has a small Open/Close button that ejects and retracts the drive bay door. This is how media like CDs, DVDs, and BDs are inserted into and removed from the drive.The sides of the optical drive have pre-drilled, threaded holes for easy mounting in the 5.25 inch drive bay in the computer case. The optical drive is mounted so the end with the connections faces inside the computer and the end with the drive bay faces outside.The back end of the optical drive contains a port for a cable that connects to the motherboard. The type of cable used will depend on the type of drive but is almost always included with an optical drive purchase. Also here is a connection for power from the power supply.Most optical drives also have jumper settings on the back end that define how the motherboard is to recognize the drive when more than one is present. These settings vary from drive to drive so check with your optical drive manufacturer for details.
Computer interfaces
Most internal drives for personal computers, servers and workstations are designed to fit in a standard 5.25" drive bay and connect to their host via an ATA or SATA interface. External drives usually have USB or FireWire interfaces. Some portable versions for lap
top use power themselves off batteries or off their interface bus.
Drives with SCSI interface exist, but are less common and tend to be more expensive, because of the cost of their interface chipsets and more complex SCSI connectors.When the optical disc drive was first developed, it was not easy to add to computer systems. Some computers such as the IBM PS/2 were standardizing on the 3.5" floppy and 3.5" hard disk, and did not include a place for a large internal device. Also IBM PCs and clones at first only included a single ATA drive interface, which by the time the CDROM was introduced, was already being used to support two hard drives. Early laptops simply had no built-in high-speed interface for supporting an external storage device.
This was solved through several techniques:
Early sound cards could include a second ATA interface, though it was often limited to supporting a single optical drive and no hard drives. This evolved into the modern second ATA interface included as standard equipment
1. A parallel port external drive was developed that connected between a printer and the computer. This was slow but an option for laptops.
2. A PCMCIA optical drive interface was also developed for laptops .
3. A SCSI card could be installed in desktop PCs for an external SCSI drive enclosure, though SCSI was typically much more expensive than other options .
Ds, DVDs, and BDs (Blu-ray discs).Some common types of optical drives include CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD?RW, and Blu-ray drives. CD and DVD writers, such as CD-R and DVD-R drives use a laser to both read and write data on the discs. The laser used for writing the data is much more powerful than the laser that reads the data, as it "burns" the bumps and dips into the disc. While optical drives can spin discs at very high speeds, they are still significantly slower than hard drives, which store data magnetically.Optical Disc Drive Description:
An optical drive is about the size of a thick soft cover book. The front of
the drive has a small Open/Close button that ejects and retracts the drive bay door. This is how media like CDs, DVDs, and BDs are inserted into and removed from the drive.The sides of the optical drive have pre-drilled, threaded holes for easy mounting in the 5.25 inch drive bay in the computer case. The optical drive is mounted so the end with the connections faces inside the computer and the end with the drive bay faces outside.The back end of the optical drive contains a port for a cable that connects to the motherboard. The type of cable used will depend on the type of drive but is almost always included with an optical drive purchase. Also here is a connection for power from the power supply.Most optical drives also have jumper settings on the back end that define how the motherboard is to recognize the drive when more than one is present. These settings vary from drive to drive so check with your optical drive manufacturer for details.Computer interfaces
Most internal drives for personal computers, servers and workstations are designed to fit in a standard 5.25" drive bay and connect to their host via an ATA or SATA interface. External drives usually have USB or FireWire interfaces. Some portable versions for lap
top use power themselves off batteries or off their interface bus.Drives with SCSI interface exist, but are less common and tend to be more expensive, because of the cost of their interface chipsets and more complex SCSI connectors.When the optical disc drive was first developed, it was not easy to add to computer systems. Some computers such as the IBM PS/2 were standardizing on the 3.5" floppy and 3.5" hard disk, and did not include a place for a large internal device. Also IBM PCs and clones at first only included a single ATA drive interface, which by the time the CDROM was introduced, was already being used to support two hard drives. Early laptops simply had no built-in high-speed interface for supporting an external storage device.
This was solved through several techniques:
Early sound cards could include a second ATA interface, though it was often limited to supporting a single optical drive and no hard drives. This evolved into the modern second ATA interface included as standard equipment
1. A parallel port external drive was developed that connected between a printer and the computer. This was slow but an option for laptops.
2. A PCMCIA optical drive interface was also developed for laptops .
3. A SCSI card could be installed in desktop PCs for an external SCSI drive enclosure, though SCSI was typically much more expensive than other options .
This is very interesting creation on this subject. I like the points and discussion about the topic. Keep it up.
ReplyDeletecorrupt pst files