Rewritable and recordable are two disc formats that are both recordable but whereas recordable allows data to be recorded only once, rewritable disc allows the user to record, erase, and then record data again on the disc. Thus they are more versatile though being more expensive also. It was the turn of rewritable CD first to appear in the markets. Then came DVD-R, and finally Blu-ray discs became rewritable. Blu-ray is a storage device that was meant to take over use of DVD and DVD-R, and it made its entry in the consumer market in the year 2000. All three, CD, DVD, and Blu-ray are today available in both recordable as well as rewritable versions making life easier for millions across the world. However, not many are aware of the differences between recordable and rewritable discs. These differences will be highlighted in this article.
While both a recordable CD and CD-RW have similar storage space, the basic difference lies in multiple use of CD-RW. Thus where CD-R can be used only once as it comes blank and after you copy media files or data , that is the end of your recording ability as you can neither erase nor record any more files on to a CD-R. On the other hand, a CD-RW can be used multiple number of times and you can store, erase, and then copy many more files on to CD-RW. So if you have a CD-RW, you can actually make use of its 700 MB capacity a number of times, thus making it a very useful storage device. The same concept has been applied in the case of DVD and Blu-ray disc so that one can make use of the 4.7 GB space of a DVD-RW multiple numbers of times. Blu-ray is available in both single layer (25 GB) as well as double layer (50 GB) versions and BD-RW has thus become extremely popular today.