DVDRW

DVDRW stands for DVD ReWritable, a type of optical disc technology that allows data to be written, erased, and rewritten multiple times. A DVDRW drive is a device capable of reading standard DVDs and CDs and, in particular, writing to and erasing rewritable DVD media. Many drives support both major rewritable DVD formats: DVD-RW and DVD+RW, though some models are optimized for one format or the other.

Rewritable DVDs come in capacities of about 4.7 gigabytes per single-layer disc, with some formats also available in dual-layer versions around 8.5 gigabytes. The writable media use a phase-change recording layer that switches between crystalline and amorphous states to encode data. Erasing or overwriting a disc prepares it for new data, usually by reinitializing the recording layer for the chosen format. The drive and media must use the same format to be reliably rewritable.

DVDRW discs are commonly used for data backup, multimedia projects, software distribution, and temporary storage. They offer the advantage of reusability compared with write-once formats, and they can be read by many computer drives and, in some cases, by standalone DVD players and game consoles that support the format. However, rewritable DVD adoption has declined with the rise of USB flash drives, external hard drives, and cloud storage, and some modern devices have limited support for rewritable media.

Today, DVDRW remains a practical option for certain archival or iterative workflows, though many users rely on non-rewritable DVDs or alternative storage media for long-term data retention.