The digital versatile disc or DVD has many utilities. Apart from storing movie and audio files, these discs can be used to store data. DVD R is the record able disk. This means you can write your data on it. You may feel that your computer has adequate space to store data. Remember, the computer is only a machine and no matter how efficient, it can crash at any time. This would most likely destroy all of the data stored in it. Given this scenario, it is always better to make a back-up of the data.

The best way to do this is to store it on the DVD R. This is a recordable disc on which data can be written only once. Once written, the data becomes permanent and the disk cannot be used again for recording.

A further improvement on the DVD-R technology is the dual disc technology or the Double Layer DVD+R technology developed by Philips Research and MKM (Mitsubishi Kagaku Media). The original storage capacity of the DVD R is about 4.7 GB, while that of the Double layer DVD R is about 8.5 GB. This is because the dual disc has two layers of data. One layer of data is semi-transparent. This makes it possible for the laser to read the second layer also. This means that the dual layer disc is able to store double the amount of data.

These discs are ideal for backing up computer records, storing movies and videos. An added bonus is that they are very fast. You will also find by searching the market they are also relatively inexpensive.