In the age of the cloud, pen drives and external hard disks with huge capacities, a DVD might seem so obsolete. I might be among very few but, I still love DVDs. Reasons below.
1. It is cheap. 15rs for 4.7 GB of data. Doesn’t get better than that when you want to quickly share something to a friend. If it is meant to last anything less than two years, you can even get a DVD for 10 bucks.
2. It is secure against viruses. Say you have some database that needs to go through couple of computers. In a flash drive, this could potentially mean adding viruses from each of these computers if they are windows machines. Annoying!. Doesn’t work if you have the virus laden pc though. Haha.
3. As sort of an USB drive. With the proper settings, you can use a DVD as ‘sort’ of an usb drive. Adding data to it each time. You cannot erase and make use of that space, but you can make it disappear.
4. Sort of Stable. If you have the habit of storing stuff on pen drives. If you use them as backup. Please, stop. That might be the worst thing you can do. You might have better luck with a dvd. Pen drives can fail in a lot of scenarios. Even as simple as one hasty moment where you pluck the drive out of the port.
Now, I know that this post may seem a little out dated. But there are scenarios in which DVDs can be really helpful. That is why I always have a few with me all the time. Lets see a couple of those scenarios.
Scenario 1: You meet a friend after a long time. He sees that you have a bulk of old photos that he wants to have. This friend lives in a remote area and does not have good internet. DVD time! It will cost you probably 45 bucks to transfer all of your photos. Assuming you have around 12-14GB of photos.
Scenario 2: You have an iso file that someone wants. Someone who does not have good internet. Plus, you know that he is not the ‘pen drive returning’ type of person.
Scenario 3: You don’t have a printer and you usually print it out in a cool shop near by that prints on the cheap. But problem is that, it has one pesky computer loaded with viruses. You will be safe to use a pen drive if you are on linux. But if you are on windows, maybe a dvd might be a really cool way to stay safe and get the job done at the same time using point 3 mentioned above. Since documents are really small in size. You could end up using a dvd for the next 10 to 50 times maybe! For 15 bucks, Yes.
So, do you like DVDs? Let me know.
I may have left out just one point in my list. So let me add that here,
5. Its vintage. There is something nice about vintage stuff. You know, if PCs still come with floppy disks, I might probably use it to store code that can fit in it. There is some good feeling about it somehow! Partly because, it brings back old memories of me meddling with windows 95 and windows 98. You had to boot with a boot floppy disk you know? You needed a separate boot disk. It was amazing. And what about using a walkman, or using a discman or a boom box? Yeah, there is a certain flavor to using those things.
As a final warning. There are some really bad disadvantages of using a DVD as well. Things like, being prone to scratches, having a limited lifespan, sensitive to storage conditions, lack of support of newer laptops and so on. So know what you are getting into. 🙂
Joys Learns 