Mt. Rainier technology is making its way back into the mainstream with the announcement of its availability on Windows Vista, which will officially be released in 2007. But computer users should ask themselves if this feature and technology is even worth adding to an Operating System, let alone the hardware required to operate it.

For example, DigitalDingus reviewed the LG Electronics GSA-5169D. It is quite a versatile drive which supports virtually anything you could imagine, including direct video and audio inputs. Other websites frown on the lack of Mt. Rainier support, but I don't consider it a needed feature at all. A benefit of Mt. Rainier is not having to use 3rd party burning applications to burn data to CD or DVD, but since I've become used to using Nero for so many years, it's only a few clicks away for a completed CD or DVD. In any case, you have to ask yourself how many people actually use this feature. I certainly do not and I've been burning data discs for years without any problems or time-consuming methods.

In addition, since the somewhat reliable hard drive is getting cheaper by the day, why even use a CD-RW or DVD-RW disc to record data? I personally organize the data for my CDs and DVDs via hard drive, then use Nero to burn the finalized output on a CD-R or DVD-R (you may use DVD+Rs which is fine). A hard drive is still quicker than the access times of any current media drive so why would a person use their -RW drive to drag and drop files and erase them? It might appear to be a convenience at first but I can do the same thing on an inexpensive hard drive much faster. In fact, the access times of a hard drive versus a media drive are rather large if you compare the specs. For example, a typical DVD drive's access time is about 140ms. A hard drive's access time is around 9ms. What we're looking at is a factor of almost 16x faster.

In the age of ever-changing electronics, which happen just about as frequently as you do your laundry, it is becoming a very confusing world for the consumer with the abundance of new technological features which often leave the consumer at a loss of what is necessary and what is practical. While Mt. Rainier technology is certainly an added feature which CD-RW and DVD-RW users will be more happy with because of more reliable RW burns, these users should maybe think about a change of workflow patterns altogether.

Hard drives are able to store data at record cost per gigabyte amounts, and hard drives are also a much more convenient way to organize data to be finally burned to a CD-R or DVD-R or DVD+R disc. Hard drives can also be networked in your home, so that you do not need a Mt. Rainier enabled device on every single computer you have. If you have a home network, your computer in the basement can communicate with the computer in the upstairs bedroom, and you can retrieve data and burn it on a CD-R or DVD-R with little fuss.

A major benefit of Mt. Rainier from proponents of the technology, is that the RW media is now more reliable and consistent. Currently, RW media is not that consistent when being read by various media drives made by various manufacturers. At the same time, DVD-R and DVD+R media is very consistent across all brands and all models of drives. So, what we have is a technology that was originally a good idea many years ago, but has just never kept up with the improvements in software applications which provide for very easy data burning, and has not kept up with current burning standards in the non-RW media world.

In conclusion, I have to currently say Mt. Rainier, while once being a promising technology, is too little, too late. I advise the consumer to not worry about whether a drive supports Mt. Rainier technology. What I do advise the consumer to be more aware of, is the quality of the media they purchase, and the quality of the drive they purchase as well.