Disc drives

Disc drives are drives on your computer which can read or write to or from optical media. These  include CD, DVD, Blu- ray and HD DVD.

Gaming PCs need to have atleast a DVD reader so that they can play games from disc, however it is also useful to have a DVD writer so that you can store data on discs, such as videos or music.

CD

CDs are the oldest type of disc, they can usually store around 700mb of data and are used mainly for music storage. These aren't usually used in computers by themselves anymore, but come with a DVD drive that can also read CDs.

DVD

DVDs are the most commonly used discs, they can usually store around 3.5 GB of data and are usually used to hold films or videos. They are cheap and can be bought for around £15, when buying these it doesn't really matter about which one you buy as they are all roughly the same.

HD DVD

These were going to be used to hold HD films and video, but are now being phased out in favour of blu ray, don't buy these as they are becoming unsupported.

Blu ray

Blu ray is the best out there at the minute and are used for playstation 3 games and for high definition (HD) movies. These can hold 25 GB of data per layer and most blu rays currently have 2 layers so can hold 50GB of data.
       Currently these are quite expensive at around £200, so should only be bought if you need to store a lot of data or want to watch HD videos with a HD ready display.

How to install a disc drive

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