"Eric Gisin" wrote in message ...
"J.Clarke" wrote in message
d...
On 2 Jan 2004 12:37:04 -0800
(harrypotter) wrote:

I have a newbie question about dvd-r's and cd-r's. I've noticed some
computers are coming out with both a dvd-r and cd-r. Others only have
a dvd-r.

A year ago a CD-RW was standard with a DVD-ROM optional. Today a combined
drive is standard, with DVD writer optional.

Is there an advantage of having both a dvd-r and a cd-r? Or is it a
redundant feature?

It's redundant for the most part--some folks like to use the CD drive
for CDs to save wear and tear on the DVD drive--DVD writers, while they
are very inexpensive compared to what they used to cost, still cost a
bit more than CD writers, and they perceive a cost saving. Also, some
CD writers write CDs faster than DVD writers unless that has changed
recently.

I don't think the read mode of any CD/DVD
drive is going kill the drive in under 5 years.

Loading your system up with redundant
CD/DVD drives does risk spin-up power sags,

Mindless stuff when most systems dont even spin up the
optical drives that dont have any media in them at boot time.

which can cause bad sectors on your hard drives.

One extra optical drive aint gunna do that.