DVD recordable higher-capacity formats like Blu-ray and HD DVD. A double-layer DVD+RW specification was approved in March 2006 with a capacity of 8.5 GB. However, manufacturing support for these rewritable dual-layer discs did not materialize due to costs and expected competition from newer and higher-capacity formats like Blu-ray and HD DVD. DVD recordable DVD recordable and DVD rewritable are optical disc recording technologies. DVD optical disc formats that can be recorded by a DVD recorder, (written, “burned”), either write once or rewritable (write multiple times) format written by laser, as compared to DVD-ROM, which is technically mass-produced by pressing, primarily for the
Optical disc drive inexpensive, are suitable where read/write capability is required. Disc recording is restricted to storing files playable on consumer appliances (films, music, etc.), relatively small volumes of data (e.g. a standard DVD holds 4.7 gigabytes) for local use, and data for distribution, but only on a small scale; mass-producing large numbers of identical discs is cheaper and faster than individual recording. Optical discs are used to back up relatively small volumes of data, but backing up of entire hard drives, which typically contain many hundreds of gigabytes or even multiple terabytes, is less practical. Large backups are often instead made on